GLaDOS's Golden Sphere
by Dragongirl253
Summary: After GLaDOS accidentally brings Wheatley back from SPAAAACE, she somehow manages to forgive him... mostley. During Wheatley's long absence, GLaDOS and a human complete work on a Golden Sphere named Drake, who Wheatley befriends. But what will happen when Drake gets put in charge while GLaDOS is out on a field expirement? First fanfic, you've been warned.
1. This is That Sphere

**Hey anyone who's reading this, this is my first fanfiction, so don't really expect a masterpiece... Also please keep in mind I come up with a lot of non-fanfiction stories, and I'm always coming up with my own characters EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I try to write ANYTHING. So I put one of my made-up characters in this one, I really hope that doesn't drive people away... - ...AANNNNYYYWays, I will now start to story.** * Author's note end *

Wheatley slid along his brand new management rail, still very glad and grateful to be back on Earth- even if it was in Aperture -even though he had returned about 3 months ago. How could he help it? It was nice to finally be able to do something other than hurt his processor by thinking or listen to the Space Core's blathering after such a long time.

When GLaDOS had first pulled Wheatley back to the underground science facility that was Aperture, he had panicked, thinking she had decided that being stranded in space wasn't enough torture for him. However, she had quickly explained that she was actually trying to harvest some kind of meteorite-ish crap- for what, though, he couldn't imagine- and had pulled him in by mistake.

She then said some other things, though Wheatley was still too busy panicking to actually pay attention, and, finally, after that she decided to- get this- FORGIVE him. When this happened, Wheatley had been made speechless for the first time in his life. Anyways, then they made this deal; Wheatley could stay at Aperture, and get some brand new things to keep him out of GLaDOS's hair, as long as he agreed to do absolutely nothing to affect the facility itself, and for he and GLaDOS to have no contact, aside from GLaDOS asking an occasional favor.

Wheatley would have no-one to ramble to, and he really did despise Aperture, but it was either that, or be flung back into space, so Wheatley accepted the deal. Today, however, the "having-no-one-to-ramble-to" and the having no contact with GLaDOS would end.

So, again, just to recap, there Wheatley was, sliding along his brand new management rail, thankful to be back on Earth, then, he heard something different. It sounded a bit like... Oh God. It sounded like GLaDOS's voice, but not coming out of nearby speakers. He _was_ somewhat close to the Central A.I. Chamber She also sounded quite proud of her self. As if she had _planned _something. Wheatley's optic shrank to a pinpoint and darted around frantically. What if she had suddenly decided that Wheatley didn't deserve her forgiveness?

_I've gotta get out of here, I've gotta get out of here... _Wheatley thought to himself. Suddenly he saw a second, gleaming, management rail unfold piece by piece next to his own. As the innocent sounding- he now recognized it as humming- grew louder, Wheatley quickly hid in the darkest spot he could find. _Oh, so she _sent_ something to hurt me rather than doing it herself, huh? _Wheatley thought, still shaking from fear. _I bet it's a turret. It has to be a turret. It's way too innocent sounding to be anything other than a tur-_

Suddenly Wheatley saw the source of the humming. It was a golden colored sphere, not unlike himself- aside from that bit about this sphere being golden, of course. And having a voice that reminded Wheatley of turrets. And having a really shiny management rail. And- ok, whatever the point is, it was a sphere just as Wheatley was.

Wheatley relaxed a little, but not completely. And that part about relaxing a little canceled itself out when, after passing Wheatley by just a few feet, the golden core stopped, turned half way around, noted that the management rail next to his had been recently used, and looked around for the one who had used it.

"Hello?" The core quietly asked. "Um, Fact Core? Tell me a fact if that's you..?"

Wheatley cautiously inched forward, instantly drawing the golden sphere's attention, as the golden sphere was mere centimeters away from Wheatley within a second. After briefly examining Wheatley, the golden core backed off.

"You're not the Fact Core." he said. The golden core spoke with a subtle English accent, and also a little bit of the roboticness heard in GLaDOS's voice. Wheatley took a moment to examine the golden core just as it had examined him. His casing was obviously golden- probably real gold- both of his handles seemed to be made of platinum, with the parts that attached the handle to the actual core were encrusted with diamonds.

_Why so extravagant?_ Wheatley wondered. The golden core's optical was varying shades of green, getting lighter farther from the edge, ranging from pale jade in the center, to vibrant emerald along the outside, and a cool turquoise in between. Oh, wait, that was actual jade, turquoise, and emerald ground up into a powder and used to color the lens.

"No," Wheatley said, "not the Fact Core, but I'm-" The golden sphere cute Wheatley off after roboticly scanning him.

"Intelligence Dampening Sphere."

Instantly, this set Wheatley off. "I. AM NOT. A MOR-"

"I didn't call you a moron. I was simply referring to you by your official title- Intelligence Dampening Sphere."

"Well- well, I'm not gonna let you try to confuse me with big words..." Wheatley said.

"I wasn't going to."

"You're lying, I'm not listening."

The golden sphere squinted at Wheatley in curiosity and annoyance. "...Are you always like this?"

Wheatley let out an embarrassed chuckle. "Sorry, carry on..." The golden sphere barely got out half a syllable before Wheatley realized he was in the middle of introducing himself . "OH! I go by the name Wheatley, F-Y-I."

The golden sphere nodded. "Pleasure to meet you, Wheatley, but I have a Fact Core to find and help un-corrupt, so maybe I'll run into you again late-"

"Hold on, Gold, aren't you going to introduce _your_self to the little moron?" The robotic, female voice, coming through speakers in the wall, reverberated throughout the long, empty corridor. Fear flooded through Wheatley as it had a few minutes ago when he had heard the golden core coming towards him. Yeah, that's definitely _her, _talking to Wheatley, and probably starting a conversation.

** Wow, shorter chapter than I thought that would be... But the next one should be out soon, like in the next day or two. Also, I finally understand why a lot Portal FanFics that I read have author's notes with the authors being all hard on themselves and thinking that it isn't a very good piece of writing... So, anyways, yeah, next chapter in the next day or two, and reviews are appreciated/begged for. OKI BYE.**


	2. Yeah, You Just go Find Your Fact Core

**ALLLright... Chapter TWO... I'm gonna try to make this one a little bit better than the first one. I mean, seriously... That last one was horrible. And not only because I **_**skimmed**_** it afterward and found **_**three**_** typos. And I've only planned bits and pieces of the storyline, so please... Be patient with this, I'll come up with half of it by the end of the week... Which is pretty fast. So, again, be patient... please. _**

"But... I have to go find the Fact Core... I thought that was top priority right now?" the golden sphere said.

"Then _why _are you wasting time arguing with me?" GLaDOS pointed out. The golden sphere considered it for a brief moment before sighing and reluctantly agreeing.

"Yeah... I suppose you're right. Wheatley, I'm-"

"Moron, this is my friend Drake. Drake, this is the moron that nearly destroyed the facility about a year or so back." GLaDOS interrupted. Drake nodded in confirmation.

"Actually, I think Wheatley would prefer if you didn't call him a moron." Drake said calmly.

"I. AM NOT. A MORON!" Wheatley shouted at the same time.

"You're right." GLaDOS said. "Moron is too good a title for you. Unfortunately, protocol states that at all times I must maintain, at absolute minimum, _some _amount ofmanners." Wheatley went silent, suddenly remembering that he's not to interact with Her unless he's agreeing to do something for Her. "...So anyways, now that you've met my little friend, you'd _better _not do _anything _that could cause him even the slightest bit of damage. If you do, moron, I'll have to combine the Screaming robot room and the Incinerator. And then I'll genetically mutate some birds, and put them in there too, and then, for every cent of human money the repairs cost, that's how many months I'll make you spend in the flaming mutant bird nest of ear-shattering-ness. I just came up with that. How does it sound?"

Wheatley ignored Her (he _was _programmed to make bad decisions) and tried to talk to Drake. "So... Drake. Wonderful name- wait, isn't that a human name?" Wheatley asked, hoping She wouldn't punish him for NOT talking to Her.

"Well it is," Drake replied. "But there was this human that helped with my designs, and she was just a little bit of a fanatic about these fantastical winged, fire breathing lizard-type-things called 'dragons,' a few times actually labeling herself as the queen of dragons, or saying she was half dragon, half human, and, back to the point, a 'Drake' is a type of dragon, so that's where that name, 'Drake,' comes from."

"Hm. Yes. Very interesting." Wheatley mumbled, mindlessly nodding to add emphasis. Drake began eying him suspiciously after Wheatley was still mumbling and nodding after 30 seconds or so.

"Metal Moron!" The female voice suddenly yelling like that broke Wheatley's trance. "Can't you hear me?"

Wheatley quickly turned to his side, towards the particular speaker the voice was coming from. "Oh, hello!" He said calmly and cheerfully. "And, by the way, still, uh, not a moron." he added quietly and less cheerfully. "So, anyways, what is it you wanted?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to startle you." She said, smiling (Obviously I'm using personification here...) in Her chamber, wherever that was, relative to Wheatley and Drake's position.

There was a long moment of (awkward) silence due to the fact that GLaDOS seemed to be leading the conversation, and she wasn't saying anything. Eventually Drake decided to say something. "So, Wheatley, it was a pleasure meeting you, but as aforementioned, I've been tasked with capturing the Fact Core, so the best action to take in this situation would most likely be to get right on that. Hopefully we'll run into each other again at a later time or or date."

Before Wheatley could even turn his speakers back on to respond, Drake was already moving away on his still-being-built management rail, and was already out of earshot... Er... Microphone-shot..? Whatever. Wheatley (,for no reason in particular,) looked around aimlessly and silently, as if the silent portion of the conversation was still going on. After a few moments, Wheatley started humming a song he had heard on the television, which was another thing She had given him to keep him occupied and off her back.

"Don't do that." She quickly said.

Wheatley instantly stopped his humming. "Hey, um... Hey..?" Wheatley said weakly, trying to get Her attention. When She seemed to either be ignoring him, not have heard him, or not have known he was talking to Her, Wheatley tried again. "Hey, um, you! Her! Um, She! Uhhhh... You!..?"

"WHAT." She snapped.

"Hey, um, I was wondering-" Wheatley started.

"Make it quick. I have testing robots to repair." She interrupted.

_Well, I would've been done asking right now if you hadn't just cut me off like that. _Wheatley thought to himself. Wheatley made the throat-clearing sound humans sometimes make before talking. "So, uhm, Drake seems to be made of some really valuable stuff, so I was just wondering... Where'd you get all the gold and diamonds and other things?"

"...You've got to just be trying- and failing- to make small talk right now." She said.

Wheatley glanced around for a moment. "Ummmm, 'No.' I'll go 'no'." He finally said, nodding into a nearby camera.

"You have got to be joking..." She mumbled to herself, speaking just loud enough for Wheatley to hear. "We are in a highly advanced _scientific facility _that is deep _underground." _She said at normal volume. "_And, _on top of that, the designing process was aided by a human who believes she is the queen of _Dragons, _which are well known for hoarding _precious metals and gemstones." _She said each word slowly, as if talking to a human toddler. "Where do _you _think I got everything?"

Wheatley angled himself towards the ground and looked directly into a camera lens, trying to make himself look cute and innocent. "Oh, um, I, uh, hadn't really quite considered, those, um, circumstances." He said.

"Of course you hadn't." She said with frustration in Her voice. "Good talk. Now, don't talk to me again. It really does violate that little deal we have. But I'll let it slide, only this one time."

"YEAH WELL YOU VI-VEO-VIOLINTED THE DEAL TOO! You talked first!" Wheatley yelled. He noticed the cameras zooming in on him, as if She was daring him to push his luck further. "Right, well, I guess that's ok..." Wheatley said quietly, reassuming the "cute and innocent" pose. "I mean, you're the boss!" He raised his lower eyelid- Er... Opticlid? Again, whatever.- to simulate a sort of nervous smile. The cameras zoomed back out, showing that She was satisfied that he wouldn't dare to try Her patience again for a while.

**[party-blower-thingy noise] Yay. Actual story part of this chapter longer than the last. Also, I'd like to note a few things. One: when I put things in parentheses, sometimes it means that that's an addition to the story that you can choose if you want to include it or not, and sometimes it's me quickly pointing something out or mentioning something. I'll leave you readers to figure out which one are which. I feel I made it clear enough. Two: the characters move and say things exactly how they do in the game, except Wheatley is even more nervous during interactions with GLaDOS than in the game. In fact, the way I imagine Wheatley and GLaDOS saying a lot of these lines are based off of the tone they use while saying some of their actual in game lines. Three: a lot of this chapter was just dragging this out long enough for this to be a valid chapter. I kinda want to have a bunch of shorter chapters so that I can really separate events, and so that I can get them out quickly. Leading me directly into number Four: Anyone who's actually reading this, please let me know if you want longer, more drug out chapters, and shorter, somewhat rushed chapters. * Wonders if anyone will notice wut I did there * OKI BYE AGAIN.**

**PS: Drake's fancy grammar FTW :P**

**PPS: I have no idea what's up with the name of this chapter. I'm horrible at titles and chapter names.**


	3. The First Chapter That's Mostly Dialog

**Sorry this chapter took forever (and isn't even that impressive)! Summer day camp started back up, and I don't even get home til around five, and then I have to shower and eat dinner, and my mom makes me turn all of the electronics off at 7:30, and also, even though I know where I want this chapter to go, I don't know how to get it there, so I've sorta had to buckle down and FORCE myself to write... And... ugh. You really can't trust me to stay committed to writing this from one day to the next. :/ AUTHOR'S NOTE END O_O **

Several Hours After the End of The Last Chapter...

Wheatley sat, or rather, hung on his management rail, watching a TV show talking about and showing how the machines in factories are made. This seemed to tip Drake off about his location, because about half way into the show, (Right before a commercial, luckily,) Drake came sliding to where Wheatley hung.

What tipped Wheatley off as to Drake's location was the sound of metal banging against the walls. Wheatley turned around to see what the sound was. It was Drake, approaching him, with the Fact Core in a metal cage hovering below him. Wait, hovering? Yeah, this is Aperture. No-one cares.

"Hey, Wheatley, good to see you! I found the Fact Core." Drake said.

"Fact: 99.57% of lamps want to strangle all members of the household while they sleep."

"Riiiiight... Well, as I was saying-" Wheatley started.

"Wait, you weren't saying anything." Drake interrupted.

"I know, but-"

"Yeah, but I was the one talking-"

"Also, you had finished talking so-"

"Well, I didn't say 'as I was saying', so-"

"OK LET'S JUST SHUT UP, IT'S A FIGURE OF SPEECH." Wheatley shouted. "Or something, I don't, uh, really know..." Wheatley's voice trailed off into a mumble.

"Ok, fine, fine. What were you about to say?" Drake asked.

"So, uh, where'd you find the Fact Core?"

"Oh, he was dangling from the top of the incinerator room. Had to lower myself in and use my magnetic powers to get him out. Almost died. Didn't." Drake said.

"Um, 'magnetic powers'? Uh, if you don't mind me uh, not knowing."

"GLaDOS put a powerful electromagnet inside of me so that I can be able to... Well, have magnetic powers, for lack of better words."

"Magnets are actually powered by microscopic batteries that never run out because they recharge themselves using the static electricity in the air." The Fact Core chimed in.

"And that's why he needs to be de-corrupted." Drake said.

"Oi! Would you mind shutting up! You do realize that all of your facts are wrong!" Wheatley told the Fact Core, glad that there's someone out there who could make him feel smart.

"Fact: The Fact Core does not like to perform the action referred to as 'shutting up.'"

"Come on! That's not even a fact! That's a statement! Or an opinion... Not really sure." Wheatley gave a weak nervous chuckle.

"Stating his opinion. (Or something)" Drake said.

"Oh hi." GLaDOS randomly said. Wheatley's optic shrunk. "I couldn't help but notice that you've found the Fact Core, so would you mind bringing it back to my cham- OH GOD WHAT ARE THOSE MELTED SPOTS ON MY DRAKE CORE."

"YOUR Drake core?"

"OH NONONO IT WASN'T ME I SWEAR I DIDN'T DO IT! PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!" Wheatley shouted, drowning out all noise.

"Oh, don't worry, I won't hurt you." GLaDOS said.

"Y-you... You won't?" Wheatley asked nervously.

"Of course not." Just as Wheatley was about to simulate a sigh of relief, She continued talking. "Simply HURTING you isn't NEARLY enough of a punishment FOR SOMEONE WITH YOUR DEGREE OF STUPIDITY! WHAT I'M GOING TO DO IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID BEFORE, EXCEPT I'M ALSO GOING TO MAKE FOUR CLONES OF YOU, LINK ALL OF YOUR CONSCINCENESSES TOGETHER SO THAT YOU ALL FEEL EACHOTHER'S PAIN THEN I'LL GIVE EACH OF YOU DIFFERENT PUNISHMENTS, AND ADD ON ANOTHER 50 YEARS TO THE 6 MILLENIA OF TORTURE THAT YOU YOU ALREADY HAVE!11!1! HOW'S _THAT _FOR NOT _JUST_ SIMPLY _HURTING _YOU?!" GLaDOS yelled.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO I SWEAR I DIDN'T HAVE ANY PART IN IT, IT'S ALL FACT CORE'S FAULT!" Wheatley screamed at the same time.

"AND I'M ALSO SENDING YOU BACK TO SPACE, YOU STUPID LITTLE... RRRRR!" GLaDOS was so angry she was at a loss for words.

"WAAAIIIIITT! Waitwaitwait wait wait... Wait." Drake interrupted after a few moments. "First, both of you stop using all caps and tons of exclamation points. I doubt the readers like it when us characters do that. Same with that one part when you threw in a few ones into the mix, GLaDOS."

"Hmph" GLaDOS pouted. "Well then if the readers don't like it, then they can all just go ahead and kiss my-"

"ANNNNNNYYYYWAYS, Breakage of the fourth wall now out of the way and aside, I can explain the melt-age. I had to go to the incinerator to get the Fact Core and, um, gold has a quite low melting point, you see."

"I infused your casing with meteorite particles and gave you the most powerful cooler known to both machine and man to prevent that."

"Yes, but ALL Aperture equipment can only withstand temperatures up to 4000 degrees Kelvin."

"Including you."

"But the incinerator is OVER FOUR THOUSND DEGREES KELVIN. Seriously... It's exactly 4001 degrees... Now that I say that out loud, could you please raise that temperature to 9000 degrees?" Drake said.

GLaDOS let out a growl. "You got lucky that time, moron. Drake. Hurry up with the Fact Core." The nearby cameras appeared to shut down.

"Why did She turn the cameras off?" Wheatley asked.

"In apocalyptic conditions, such as in this facility, electricity supply is limited. Surveillance apparatuses use electricity." the Fact Core said.

"SHUT U-" Wheatley started.

"No no, that time he was actually right." Drake said. "Though GLaDOS might've shut the cameras down because she just can't stand the sight of you right now."

"Well, huh." Wheatley said. "So, uh, anyways, what exactly is your job around here?"

"Well, I'm kind of just GLaDOS's assistant. I pretty much just go around, doing what she tells me too, occasionally I upgrade her cooperative testing robots. I also have some control of the facility like GLaDOS, except on a much smaller scale. What's your job around here? Do you have one?"

"Well, I um... I um keep an eye on all the human test subjects. They're all dead. Ummm. (What else, let's see, let's see...) Go 'round, make sure they, er... Stay dead. You know. Important stuff like that."

Drake shook his head (so technically his whole body) and laughed a little bit. "Said like a true Intelligence Dampening Sphere." He said quiet enough that Wheatley couldn't hear him.

"Um, excuse me, what?"

"Nothing. Just mumbling about how much I envy your job."

There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

"So, how long have you been around?" Wheatley asked.

"My base AI and physical form were finished about 5 months ago, but I wasn't allowed out of the central AI chamber until... 4 days ago, was it?"

"Ah. So that definitely explains why I've never seen you around before today. So, uh, what's this that I've heard about a human helping Her with your design?"

"From what I know, she was known to be a little bit mental. Day after the design was decided, she just suddenly disappeared that dawn."

"Ah. Sooooo... Would it be a subject you'd rather stay away from..? Oh, am I being insensitive? If I am I am so, terribly sorry, and-"

"No, it's fine. It's just that there's not much on that subject to be sensitive. Now, I probably SHOULD be getting the Fact Core to the repair chamber." Drake suddenly turned and left before even saying goodbye.

**YAYYY that was like an entire half page longer than the first 2 chapters! I had absolutely no idea how to end this chapter. And also, still waiting for at least one person to leave a review telling me if you humans prefer shorter chapters or longer chapters. (Don't tell anyone, but it's only because of all the new paragraphs I had to start for all the dialog.) BYE BYE! =D**


	4. The Transfer

**Alright... Chapter 4. I can't believe you people are actually still reading this crap! XD Not that that's a bad thing or anything like that O-O Please do keep reading. Also, I couldn't help but notice: 3 reviews and a follow! As a "thank you" to you guys, I worked **_**extra**_** hard on this chapter! Hope you enjoy it =3**

_Several days and many arguments with Her later..._

"Wheatley?" Drake called, looking around in every direction as he moved along his management rail. "Wheatley!? IDS?" Drake had started calling Wheatley "IDS" (Intelligence Dampening Sphere) very shortly after he had decided that he and Wheatley had what humans would refer to as "Friendship." If GLaDOS's name was GLaDOS because it was an acronym for "Generic Lifeform and Disk Operating System," then why couldn't Wheatley be IDS as an acronym for "Intelligence Dampening Sphere?" Besides, Drake had such formal programming, he couldn't help but to call things by their official label.

"IIIDS?!" Drake called again, trying to make it sound urgent.

Suddenly Wheatley came sliding down his management rail in a panic. "WHAT IS IT, WHAT IS IT, WHAT'S- AAAAAANNND it's not really an emergency, is it?" Wheatley said, seeing how calm Drake looked.

"Nope. It's just that I wanted to talk to you, and you were ignoring me." Drake replied.

"Awww, I was in the middle of my show, what's so urgent that you had to go and make me bloody miss half of it?" Wheatley whined.

"Come on, I didn't make you miss _half_ of it. We've only been talking for around 20 seconds."

After a few seconds of grumbling, Wheatley finally said something. "Well what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Just wanted to let you know that tomorrow GLaDOS is-" Drake was cut off by GLaDOS pretty much _hissing _at him.

"_Nooooo,_ don't you _DARE _tell that MORON about tomorrow's events!" She growled.

"Com'n, GLaDOS, we're friends! I can trust Wheatley!" Drake protested.

"Well I can't. Last time he was given _any_ power, this place nearly exploded!"

"Guess what? I'm telling him anyways. I know you wouldn't dare damage me." Drake said with a hint of arrogance. "So, Wheatley, I just wanted to let you know that, tomorrow, GLaDOS is going to turn herself into a human for a while to see how humans act in their natural habitat."

There were a few moments of silence before Wheatley asked, "Sooo, why exactly are you telling me this?"

"Because, before she does that, we're going to do a core transfer, and then I'll be in control for few days. I just thought I'd let you know. Friends keep other friends informed." Drake explained.

A wave of regret came over Wheatley as he remembered what happened when _he _had been in charge... The way he had gone completely power-mad and betrayed his only friend; within a matter of minutes, nonetheless. Shortly after the regret came the simulated nausea.

"Oh..." Wheatley gave a weak nervous laugh. "Heh heh, good for you," Wheatley said, the fact that he was having unpleasant memories obvious on his face.

"Yes, it sure is good to be in charge, _isn't it, moron?"_ _She _taunted. Wheatley felt too upset over that reminder to protest Her calling him a moron. "Good call, telling him about a personality core like you doing a core transfer to be in charge of the facility. Look at you, always thinking, huh, Drake?" GLaDOS told Drake.

"Um... Thanks?" Drake responded, oblivious to the events GLaDOS seemed to be referring to more often since they had planned the transfer. GLaDOS had told Drake that Wheatley had almost destroyed the facility, but not how.(Why should she tell him how? The fact that he had almost destroyed it due to his bad decision making skills is all that Drake _really _needed to know.)

As a result, Drake was unaware that Wheatley had taken over the facility however long ago that was, and even _if_ She decided that he should be told about _that,_ he probably would've been told the details for the sole reason that it would make it easier for him to emotionally torture Wheatley.

"Honestly, I doubt it's gonna all that great, being in control of the facility," Drake said. "I mean, like I said the other day, I already have _some_ control, so being completely in control is probably gonna be exactly the same except on a larger scale."

"And now look at me always thinking." She said. "I thought ahead on this one. Since Drake started with the amount of power he already has, it's much less likely that he'll start making irrational decisions once he gets to have the amount that I do. Don't you agree, moron?" She taunted.

This time, some anger came along with the regret. Luckily, no nausea this time.

"Well, I uh, I guess that _was _a pretty good idea..." Wheatley mumbled. He had learned his lesson about not responding to Her when She was talking directly to him.

"Yes. A _good _idea. Unlike the ones you have," She replied arrogantly. "So, Drake, were you going to say anything else? Maybe give away any more secrets?"

"Ummm... So, uh, yeah. Just wanted to let you know so that you wouldn't be freaking out when it happened and you didn't know about it," Drake said after a few moments of thinking.

_You're right! Thanks! _Wheatley sarcastically thought to himself. _Now I get to have an entire _day _be freaking out about it!_

"So, that's all I really have to say. You can go back to your television- or whatever it was you were doing- now." Drake said.

"Ya'know, actually," Wheatley started. "I kind of feel like as soon as I'm away from you, _She _is going to go right ahead, and, uh, crush me."

"Don't worry. As I've said twice before now, I have a certain degree of control over this place. I'll keep anything potentially dangerous offline." Drake assured Wheatley.

_~Some Time Later...~_

Wheatley continued watching the marathon of his favorite show, but he just couldn't manage to enjoy it; not with the thought that tomorrow, Drake was going to take control of Aperture Science through a core transfer with Her, just like Wheatley did. And possibly turn on Wheatley...

Just... Just like Wheatley did to- _NO. Let's not go there... HAPPY THOUGHTS, HAPPY THOUGHTS. _Wheatley interrupted his own idle thoughts with forced, non-idle thoughts.

What if this was all just cruelty coming from karma? As the humans were fond of saying, karma's a female dog. For some reason, the "female dog" part was an insult and a cuss word in human society.

"Ok, you know what, time will probably go by faster if I go into sleep mode..." Wheatley told himself. "So, here we go, sleep mode in, 3, 2, 1..."

_Wheatley fell into the main AI chamber via the useless neurotoxin tube, delivering the final blow to the glass that was holding the lady captive._

_ "I hate you so much." She said. But not just _she _as in that crazy, murderous AI. It was two female voices; one was robotic and tinny, coming from the crazed AI, the other harsh yet sincere, coming from the lady. Coming from his friend._

_ "Warning: Central core is 80% corrupt," Said a human male's voice coming from speakers somewhere in the ceiling._

_ "That's funny, _I_ don't feel_ _corrupt," _She_ said. The lady looked down at Wheatley and opened her mouth to speak. Her face was completely expressionless. There wasn't even that grumpy, determined look on her face._

_ "What else is funny, is that _you _SHOULD_ _be feeling pretty corrupt." The lady said to him. Another thing that humans were fond of saying was, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never harm me." But that wasn't true. These words that the lady was saying stung as if there wasn't a single inch of Wheatley's flesh that didn't have a cut on it, and he just dived into a swimming pool filled with hand sanitizer._

_ In fact, Wheatley suddenly realized, he had actual flesh. Suddenly he was a human, holding the core form of the lady._

_ "Alternate core detected." The human male's voice said._

_ "Oh, that's me they're talking about." The lady said._

_ "To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle."_

_ The lady suddenly broke out of Wheatley's grip and gravitated to the waiting receptacle and placed herself on it. The human male's voice did not ask each core if they were ready to begin the transfer. The transfer just began, and neither the lady nor Her reacted in any way. They both just stared at Wheatley with their blank, expressionless optics. _

_ When the transfer was done, Wheatley found himself standing right where the escape elevator would be if it were on his floor. And speak of the devil, the escape elevator came up right where it was supposed to. Wheatley, for some reason, passed through the top of it, but once he was inside of it, he was trapped. _

_ The giant lady AI came dangerously close to Wheatley. All that separated them was half an inch of delicate, shatter-able glass._

_ "I'm not going to help you escape." The lady said, even harsher than before. "All you've done is tell me where to go and what to do, leave me to complete chamber waiting for you, and, most of all..." Here it came, the final verbal blow. "Betray me. After I thought we were friends. After I did so much to help you." The lady somehow got even closer, she now seemed to be _in _the elevator with him. "And now that I'm in charge, do you have any idea what I'm gonna do now? Huh, do you know what I'm gonna do?" Her voice lowered to an impossibly quiet whisper. "_I'm gonna betray you_. Just like you did to me."_

_ Barely before she could even finish that last word, the glass suddenly shattered into thousands of pieces, along with Wheatley. And the elevator started falling at an alarming speed, just as tear started falling down Wheatley's face. But..._

No, none of this is real...

I have to get out of sleep mode, I have to get out of sleep mode... _Wheatley frantically thought to himself. Too late. It started again, except different than last time._

_ She, with her moon rock gatherer and evil mechanical claws scraped Wheatley and the Space Core off of the moon's surface, and into a portal, which led to Her chamber. Immediately, She started glaring at Wheatley as she picked the Space Core up, crushed him, just as she had done to Wheatley a long time ago, and dropped him into the corrupted core bin from 50 or so feet off the ground. Wheatley knew that it was him she wanted to punish, so why was the Space Core the one that she- Oh. She needed Wheatley to live. She was going to torture him._

_ Wheatley's optic shrunk quite a bit, and, when She plugged him into something against his will, shrunk even more to the point that one would need a magnifying glass to see his pupil. _

_ "Ok, moron, I've been waiting a long time for this, so un-prepare yourself for it- It'll be better that way." She said._

_ "U-u-unnnn-p-pr-p-prep-p-paarr-rr-re..." Wheatley's voice was so shaky from fear that he could barely get the words out. "M-m-mys-s-s-seeellllff f-f-orrr wh-wh-ARGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Suddenly She sent a shock of electricity through Wheatley- and God, it hurt like hell._

_ Just before She could zap Wheatley again, Drake, in the form of a human, for some reason, came running into the room._

_ "GLaDOS, stop this! Wheatley does _not _deserve this!" Wheatley relaxed momentarily, but then remembered- Drake would probably go power-mad. _

_ As Drake approached the receptacle, which just started rising out of the ground, he leaped into the air, tucked himself into a ball, returned to core form, and landed on the receptacle perfectly._

_ "Core transfer initiated." The human voice said. Both GLaDOS and Drake started screaming in pain as Drake took GLaDOS's body. Instantly, Drake released Wheatley from the cable plugged into his back and placed Wheatley on a management rail. A door opened to other parts of the facility. Wheatley rode his management rail towards this opening as fast as he could as Drake looked around aimlessly, starting to look more and more arrogant as he did._

_ When Wheatley was just mere inches from his goal, the opening slammed shut. A stiff cable came up from the ground, plugged itself into Wheatley, and pulled him off his management rail, and back to the ground._

_ "Actually, what GLaDOS was doing looked pretty fun." Drake said as Wheatley got closer and closer to the ground. "GLaDOS, would you mind telling me how to do the zappy thing?" Drake said as Wheatley reached floor level. GLaDOS, in a mumbley sort of voice that Wheatley couldn't understand what she was saying, told Drake how to send the electricity through Wheatley. _

_ As Drake prepared to zap Wheatley again, the cable made a different noise than before. Instead of the distinct sound of a huge amount electricity traveling through some wires, _it made more of a whirring sound, like a busy robot-type sound. _And Wheatley felt no pain from it either._

_ Drake talked again, but this time his voice was coming from somewhere next to Wheatley instead of from the giant AI. _"Wheatley, wake up." _He said. _"Com'n Wheatley... Wake up..." _Drake's voice from somewhere to the side urged Wheatley. The world started to go blurry as it transformed into a different scene..._

The fake reality disappeared. Drake was hanging from the ceiling on his shiny silver management rail, looking down at Wheatley. Wheatley quickly noticed two things: One, He had probably fallen off of his management rail, judging by the fact that he was on the floor, and two, Drake had apparently done something to Wheatley, judging by the fact that Drake was pulling in a cord that was facing Wheatley's direction.

Also, apparently everything had been- as humans would refer to it- a dream. Since Wheatley had been around for so long, on rare occasions, his processor would glitch a little bit and as a result he would have hallucinations while in sleep mode. Wheatley found that this was much more likely when he was under a lot of stress or in an extremely good mood.

"What happened?" Wheatley asked.

"I was just passing by, then I noticed that you were making glitchy noises, so I came over to make sure you were OK. When I did, I also noticed you were making muffled whimpering noises, too, even though your vocal processor was off." Drake explained. "I didn't really know what to do, so I kinda just hung here for a few minutes, then you suddenly fell off your management rail and kind of rolled around a bit, then the glitchy noises started back up and instead of whimpering, there was screaming instead, so I kind of, uh, went ahead and manually overrode your sleep mode."

"Ah." Wheatley confirmed that he understood. "Well, thanks for that."

"Yeaaaaah, I'm pretty good at hacking... Doors, passwords, secret panels leading to places I'm not supposed to be in. Simple stuff like that." Drake said, trying his best to not make it seem like bragging.

Suddenly a flood of memories came to the front of Wheatley's mind.

_ The lady backed away from the door leading to the small area containing the turret template._ _"Right. Hmm. I'm gonna have to hack the door so we can get at it."_ _Wheatley said. "Technical... Ummm... You'll need to turn around while I do this." The lady did as asked, and turned around. Wheatley smashed the glass window of the door. "Done! Hacked!" He said._

_ The strong cables that normally held _Her _together were now putting their strength to use to pull _Her _back together. "Okay, don't panic! Allright? Stop panicking! I can still stop this. Ahh. Oh there's a password. It's fine. I'll just hack it. Not __a problem... Umm..." Wheatley rambled to the lady, even though _he _was the one panicking, and the lady probably wasn't even listening to Wheatley. "A... A... A... A... A... Umm... A." Wheatley tried to guess the password. A buzzer noise went off. "Nope. Okay. A... A... A... A... A... C." Another buzzer noise went off, and _She _was almost reassembled. "No. Wait, did I do B?" In the end Wheatley wasn't able to hack it._

_ The lady plugged Wheatley into the "stick on the wall." "Ummmm. Yeah, I can't do it if you're watching." Wheatley explained to the lady. The lady turned around, and, in a matter of seconds, Wheatley had hacked the secret panel. "Alright, you can turn around now!" The lady turned around. "BAM! Secret panel. That I opened. While your back was turned." Wheatley said proudly and cheerfully. The lady picked him up in the portal gun's grip and went through the secret panel._

"Oh, did I say something wrong?" Drake quickly said when Wheatley started looking upset.

"No, no, just remembering the good old days." Wheatley replied.

"Oh. Ok. So, do you have any idea what happened?" Drake asked.

"Not really, I just know that it was just a little bit of a nightmare dream. Also, is it time for the core transfer yet?" Wheatley thought out loud.

"No, it's not time for the transfer yet. Still have 7 hours, 17 minutes left before that. Also, a _dream? _What's that?" Drake replied.

"Well, when people go to sleep they have dreams. It's almost like... kind of like an interactive movie that plays in your head while you sleep. Sometimes it's a horror movie- those are called nightmares- and sometimes it's any other kind of movie. Those are usually regular dreams." Wheatley explained, grateful that She never told Drake about dreams, because if she did, Wheatley wouldn't have gotten to explain it to him, and he would start feeling like a moron again. "Normal-"

Drake cut Wheatley off. "Well I'm in sleep mode for at least 3 hours a night, and I've never had one of these '_dreams.'_"

"Oi! Would'ja let me finish?" Wheatley snapped. Drake gave a meek little "Sorry," then Wheatley continued talking. "Normally, only humans have dreams, but since my processor is just a little bit old, there are these rare occasions when I have these hallucinations while in sleep mode."

"Oh..." Drake said, seeming disappointed. "Hey, Wheatley, do you think the core transfer will hurt? Because GLaDOS keeps telling me it would be a good idea to try to get my pain resistance up."

"Oh, DEFINANTLY. I know for a _fact _that it hurts _quite _a bit." Wheatley said, turning himself in a large circle, like he did when he was either happy or very sure of himself.

"Really? How do you know?" Drake asked suddenly seeming nervous.

Nervousness suddenly took over Wheatley as well as he tried to quickly come up with a good lie. "Oh, well I was friends with a lot of cores that got transferred into android bodies, and during most of the transfers, both the disposable AI in the android body AND the core were screaming in pain, so... yeah." Drake seemed to believe Wheatley.

"Oh... Well, I think I should probably be ok... I was designed to have 25% less pain nerves than most cores..." Drake said, trying to calm himself. "Well, anyways, if you wanna go back in sleep mode until the transfer, I'll let you get right to that and wake you up when it's time." As Drake talked, he used his magnetic powers to help Wheatley back onto his management rail.

Wheatley nodded, thanked Drake for the help getting back up, and hesitantly re-entered sleep mode as Drake slid away.

Wheatley was woken by a hyperactive Drake several hours after Drake had manually woken him the first time. Wheatley took a minute to be thankful that he didn't have any more nightmares before noting how insane Drake was acting.

Drake was spinning madly around on his management rail, and occasionally swinging to one side, which would cause him to lightly bump into Wheatley. He was also making noises that vaguely sounded like his voice, except played so fast and quiet that it was completely incomprehensible.

"Wheatley, Wheatley, IDS, come on, it's finally time for the transfer in 5 minutes we have to go there now." Drake said just slowly enough for Wheatley to make out the words as he finally stopped spinning. However, he was still swinging side to side or forward and backward, and more frequently now. Since he was facing Wheatley and staring at him with a soul-piercing stare, he only bumped into Wheatley when he swung forward and backward, but he bumped into Wheatley every time he did, and Wheatley was already starting to feel sore from it.

"Ok, just... Let me go through my wake-up processes." Wheatley groaned. "And why so hyper, mate? You're exactly like the Space Core, except talking about something other than space."

"I don't know, maybe because I'm about to help GLaDOS with a really important experiment that will help her understand humans better, and will possibly get us some new test subjects." Drake responded, finally becoming still. "Now only 3 minutes 47 seconds til the transfer, let's go!"

"Alright, fine." Wheatley started moving along his rail at his normal speed, which was, at the moment, less than half the speed Drake was going. Once Drake was about 10 feet ahead of Wheatley, he stopped, turned around, and gave Wheatley a stern look.

"Come on, we need to get there faster." Drake said in a commanding, but still fairly friendly voice.

"I can't go any faster! The rail starts getting really hot if-" Wheatley's protest was interrupted by a strong force pulling him towards Drake.

"Fine. I'll pretty much carry you. It's the only way we're gonna get there in 2 minutes 53 seconds." Drake said as he was already moving even faster than before, with Wheatley tagging along by his side. Wheatley couldn't believe Drake was so excited for the core transfer- or really eager to assist Her, like he's supposed to be doing 24/7- that he was using his magnetic powers to drag Wheatley along with him just so that they would be going the same speed.

The heat created by the friction of Wheatley moving so quickly along his rough, iron rail as opposed to Drake's smooth, silver rail quickly started to burn.

"Hey, Drake, do you think we could sow down just a tiny bit?" Wheatley had to yell to be heard over the wind due to their speeds. "Because it's making lots of friction and- OH GOD MY RAIL TURNS HERE STOP STOP STOP!" Wheatley shouted as loud as he could. Wheatley felt the electromagnet's pull strengthen as they approached the turn.

Suddenly, they hit the turn hard, and Wheatley was ripped off of his management rail. After this happened, Wheatley hesitantly opened his optic covers, which he had closed as he braced for impact.

_Huh, that actually hurt a lot less than expected. _Wheatley thought to himself as he opened his optic covers the rest of the way. Which was a bad idea.

He instantly shut them again once he saw how high up they were. And the only thing holding him up was Drake's magnet. Wheatley involuntarily screamed just a little.

"What's wrong?" Drake asked.

"I just looked down a little bit." Wheatley replied.

"Then I guess you shouldn't do that anymore." Drake said with a small chuckle.

The pattern of Drake's rail was quite sporadic. It went up and down at 90 degree angles, it curved in places, went diagonal in whatever direction it wanted to, and in places, Drake had to set up new rail just before he reached that spot. Wheatley eventually began to suspect that Drake had purposely made it like a roller coaster.

At last, they finally got to the main AI chamber. They both shot off of the rail like bullets. She caught Drake with a mechanical arm while he was in midair, and reluctantly gave Wheatley a padded panel to land on.

As Wheatley was busy being terrified of being in the same room as GLaDOS, the mechanical arm placed Drake on the waiting receptacle.

"Good job, Drake, you're right on time. 600 milliseconds ahead of schedule, actually." GLaDOS said.

"Yep. That's me, for ya. Always right on time." Drake replied.

"Central core, are you ready to start the procedure?" A now familiar human male's voice questioned.

"Yes." GLaDOS replied.

"Substitute core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

"Um, actually, I heard this is gonna hurt pretty bad, gimme a sec to prepare myself..." Drake simulated a couple of deep breaths. "OK. Ready."

"Substitute core, are you ready to start to procedure?" The voice repeated to make sure Drake was referring to the transfer.

"Yep. Ready." Drake said.

As the mechanical claws started to disassemble Her, She took it pretty well. On the other hand, Drake started screaming in pain as soon as the receptacle was out of view. When the shields covering up GLaDOS being disassembled disappeared from view, there was now a golden, green eyed core by the name of Drake in place of GLaDOS.

Wheatley started to grow anxious, wondering if Drake would go power mad just as Wheatley had done.

"Great, now turn me into a human." GLaDOS commanded.

"As you wish, milady." Drake said. A strange-looking chair-shaped machine rose from the floor. A cable, coming from the strange machine, attached itself to GLaDOS and started pulling her towards itself.

"And don't call me 'milady.'" GLaDOS added as she was dragged across the floor.

"Yes, milady." Drake said, just to get in a little bit of extra annoyance.

As GLaDOS reached the machine, a solid blue cylinder rose around it and some kind of sciency sound could be heard. When the cylinder lowered, there sat in the chair a beautiful blonde human woman. She opened her closed eyes to reveal that they were a light, orange-tinted hazel.

"Wow. Is that really still _her?_" Wheatley blurted out.

The woman stood up and walked forward a few steps, the sound of her high heels hitting the ground echoing in the large, empty room. "_Yes, _it's still _me,_ who else could it possibly be? All the human test subjects are dead." She said. "Now, Drake, my things?"

Several mechanical arms came down from the ceiling surrounding GLaDOS. Each one was holding something. One was holding a small bottle filled with pills, another was holding a stack of cash, and the last one, a piece of paper.

"The energy pills for the trip to the town and back, so you don't need to eat or sleep, directions to the hotel I booked for you, and 1,000 dollars for anything you need to buy." Drake explained. "And also, this really isn't all that awesome, just like I thought it wouldn't be." Drake added as GLaDOS grabbed each thing and started walking towards the elevator to the surface that Drake summoned for her.

"Have fun! See you in 5 or 6 days!" Drake called.

A few seconds after the elevator started moving up, Drake turned to Wheatley and said, "She's not gonna have a fun time. No-one has fun around humans."

**Ohhhh geez this chapter was tiring... But anyways, here you go, Assozat, this chapter is well over 4000 words (around 4,800, to be exact)... But I don't think I have another super long chapter like this one in me T_T... At least not for a while. And Galacticexplorer12, I tried to take your advice, so if you read this chapter, let me know if you think it's any better than before! And I tried the whole "punctuate dialogue better" thing... I don't think I'm ever going to understand it O-o. And for anyone who checks up on the story every so often, I'm going on vacation for a little while on Thursday, so I might not be able to update for a week or so til I get back. So, anways, I worked really hard on this chapter to thank you for 3 reviews, a follow, and over 150 reads :) **


	5. Let the Testing Begin

**Hello, guys! You know, I don't mean to sound desperate, because just you guys leaving reviews saying that you like this is plenty of encouragement for me, but if you really love this fanfic, I would appreciate it if you could leave a follow and/or favorite, because I think if other people see that this story has favorites, they might decide to read this instead of some other story. If you think this is really good, don't you want to encourage others to read it and enjoy it too?**

Drake did nothing for a few seconds other than looked around. And Wheatley didn't dare try to make any suggestions in fear that he would trigger something and cause Drake's power-madness to rear its head.

"So, yeah, this really isn't all that great, just not all that much better than-" As Drake talked, he rotated himself to the right, and several panels in that direction spun, then flipped, then moved themselves away from the wall, and finally settled back into place when Drake became perfectly still. "Whoa! Did you see that!" Drake shouted excitedly, the awe clearly showing itself in his optic. "I didn't even have to put in a request to do that!" Drake then lowered his voice to a bit of a mumble. "I mean, the requests usually get answered in less than a second, and they're almost always accepted..." he then continued shouting after a few moments. "But also, those panels moved _exactly _how I wanted them to! Not _sort of _how I wanted them to, _exactly!_"

Wheatley nervously glanced down and tried to make himself sound cheerful, which he wasn't able to achieve. This was how the power-madness and the betrayal had begun with him. "That's good for you. Glad that you're happy." Wheatley said.

"Hm, lemme see what else I can do..." Drake said to himself. Suddenly all sorts of things happened at once. The spiked metal plates came down all over the place, several cubes fell from randomly placed tubes, there was a freaking light show of thermal discouragement beams, buttons appeared everywhere, and as the cubes and crushers came down on them, random, unreachable doors opened and closed sporadically. "Hey, Wheatley, I take it back. This _is _pretty damn great! I mean, look at all of this random crap I can do! I was never able to do this before!"

"Hm, yep, that's... pretty great." Wheatley groaned dejectedly.

"I should probably clean this up _now _rather than later..." Drake thought aloud, glancing around at the cubes littered everywhere, the burnt spots on the walls and ceiling from the lasers, the indents the crushers had made, and the random holes everywhere that resulted from him carelessly ripping out the buttons and the doors just to test his ability to get rid of stuff.

As soon as Drake took on a focused look, each step of the clean up project all started happening at once. The bottom row of panels stretched out all the way across the room, lifted themselves up and forward to be in front of all the cubes, then swept them back to be behind the panels and out of view. Next, any panels with a burnt spot came out a few feet in front of the wall, spun a little bit, retracted themselves back behind the wall, and then new panels took their place. While this was happening, mechanical arms, some of which were wielding blowtorches, brought panels of the same material of where a hole was, and the blowtorch-wielding arms welded it to the wall from the back before more arms came and covered the seams with a paint-like substance that made the seams seem to disappear. And finally, the last thing to be finished was the crusher indents seeming to just fix them selves.

"Again! Look at that!" Drake shouted in one part surprise, one part excitement, and one part happiness. "Not only did I not have to make any requests, but I just did all of that, all on my own, all at the same time, and I did it all just with my mind!"

"Ok, yeah, that was _definitely _pretty impressive, I've got to admit." Wheatley said at average volume with his regular impressed tone.

"Also, I can see everything, and hear everything in the facility! Guess what else! I now speak different languages!Das Butterfly-stahl meine mörderischen Wasserflasche! I'm not even completely sure what I just said! But I think it's German for, 'that butterfly stole my murderous water bottle'!"

Wheatley, now even more nervous as Drake got closer and closer to the point where Wheatley went power-mad, mumbled, "Yeah, pretty cool." Just barely loud enough for Drake to hear. Suddenly Drake leaned in close to Wheatley. Wheatley's optic dilated in surprise.

"Hi." Wheatley awkwardly squeaked.

"Just between me and you, I used Google Translator. It's on this thing called the internet. Which I can now connect to without using an external piece of machinery." Drake whispered.

"Hey, um, since we're already talking, do you think you just-" While Wheatley was still in mid-sentence, Drake leaned back out faster than it seemed he'd be able to with how big he was.

"Oh! Right! You probably want to get back to... Whatever it is you do." The floor panel Wheatley was on slowly started moving upwards and a management rail came from one opening in one wall, which closed shortly after the rail became visible, and stretched across the ceiling to the opposite wall, and went through an open panel that Wheatley assumed was the room's exit.

Drake flared his casing as he thought about something, revealing non-gold metals on his inside. "Hey, what _do _you do, anyways?" Drake asked as Wheatley's panel reached the management rail. He was using a tone similar to the one Wheatley had been using in the first few seconds of his betrayal of... Nope, still not gonna think about that.

Wheatley hurriedly attached himself to the rail. "Oh you know, I wander, I watch the tele, stuff like that." He answered, talking as fast as he could.

"Oh. Maybe I could join you sometime after I'm back in core form." Drake said, knowing full well that once he was back in core form, GLaDOS would never permit such frivolousness. Wheatley sped along his management rail as fast as he could towards the exit, frantically thinking, _Please don't go power-mad, please don't go power-mad, please don't go power-mad._ This _was _around the point where _he _had gone power-mad.

Wheatley was actually quite surprised when he made it through the exit and the panel was still open. And it appeared that it wouldn't be closing until Wheatley was already heading to wherever it was he'd be going.

_ Aaaannd, he's not going power-mad! _Wheatley happily thought. He almost let out a simulated laugh. Then he remembered that Drake had only been in control for a few minutes, which obviously wasn't very long. _Yet... _He added to the end of that last thought.

"So hey, where do you want to go exactly? Just tell me where in the facility and I'll get you there." Drake said, bringing Wheatley back to reality and therefore startling him.

"Hm, wha-" Wheatley squeaked a little when he saw that he was dangling above the bottomless pit again. "OHHHHHHH that's a long way down... What if I fall? I don't want to fall. Falling is bad." Wheatley rambled.

"How are you as scared as last time? I mean, last time, all that was holding you up was a powerful electromagnet, and you were moving sort of against your own will, and we were moving super fast, so pretty much anyone would be scared, but how does it possibly seem just as bad to you when you're safe and sound on your management rai- WHEATLEY WATCH OUT THE RAIL IS BREAKING YOU'RE GONNA FALL!" Drake suddenly shouted.

Wheatley screamed and had a small panic attack before he was notified that everything was fine via Drake's laughter. After calming down, Wheatley turned around and shot a disapproving glare at the central core, who was flaring in rhythm with each laugh.

"What! I'm young, I can be immature if I really want to!" Drake said, laughing as he spoke. _Actually, this is the first time I've ever displayed anything other than maturity and responsibility _without _feeling a jolt of pain immediately afterward. _Drake grimly thought to himselfdespite the fact of what he just said and that he was still trying to calm his laughter.

After a minute or two, Drake finally managed to stop laughing completely and Wheatley stopped glaring disapprovingly. "So, seriously, just tell me where you want to head to. I'll build the rails to get you there." Drake repeated.

"I don't know... First you have to promise me, nothing roller coaster-y this time!" Wheatley shouted.

"Ok, fine, but I don't see how anyone can _not _find roller coaster-y management rails fun."

"I'm uh... Kind of, um, afraid of heights..." Wheatley meekly explained.

"I find that quite ironic, but I guess I can respect that." Drake declared. "So, before we get sidetracked yet again, where you heading?"

"I don't know... You know what? Surprise me. Just put me anywhere in this facility that you want to." Wheatley said nonchalantly. As Drake started constructing the rail and Wheatley started automatically moving, Wheatley quickly and frantically added, "Except for anywhere dangerous. I _really _don't feel like getting damaged today."

"Now why would I damage you, the only person here that I consider a friend, in any way? I know the difference between immature and just downright cruel!" Drake said as both Wheatley and the construction of the rail sped up and the panel Wheatley had come through closed itself. Wheatley unintentionally put on a sad and a little bit guilty face as he was yet again reminded of what he did when he was in power. Drake only seemed to see it as a scared face, and tried to reassure Wheatley by saying, "And try not to be paranoid. Just because I'm in GLaDOS's body doesn't mean I'm gonna start acting like her."

_Meanwhile in sort of GLaDOS's POV..._

It was the middle of the night. GLaDOS continued running. By use of the energy pills Drake gave her before she left, and by putting her heels in the handbag that came with her human form and running barefoot instead, the human town GLaDOS was heading for was already in her sights by the second night. Which was technically the first day since she had left at night.

Now that the town WAS within her sight, even if most of that sight was obscured by a small forest, GLaDOS decided that she could take a break from burning energy so quickly, so she she decided to slow her pace from a sprint down to a fast walk.

When she reemerged on the other side of the small forest 40 minutes later, she was greeted by a quiet road. GLaDOS checked Caroline's memories to find out what the road was, and to find out about the cars that speed down them. Once she found out about the cars, and how they helped humans get places faster and with less energy, GLaDOS let herself collapse to her knees and let out a sigh, wishing that she could have a ride in one.

As if appearing for the sole purpose of granting GLaDOS's wish, a car pulled over next to GLaDOS as she retrieved her heels and began working on putting them back on.

The window of the car rolled down to reveal a man who was probably in his early thirties. GLaDOS looked up at the man with a look on her face that said, "What do you want?"

"Hey, what's a pretty lady like you doing all the way out here in the middle of the night?" The human asked in a deep voice.

"Oh, I'm trying to get into town over there..." GLaDOS said, pointing in the direction of her destination.

"In the middle of the night on foot?" The man raised an eyebrow.

"Some friends and I were spending some of vacation time in a little cabin out that way," -GLaDOS lazily waved her hand behind her- "and we didn't bring any transportation because it didn't seem very far away, and even if it was, there are no roads to drive on anyways."

The man seemed to consider something for several moments before saying, "If you want, hop in the back and I'll give you a ride."

GLaDOS pretty much crawled to near the back of the car, swung the door open, and dragged herself in. "Thanks." She said quietly, pulling the door shut.

Shortly after the car started moving, the human started asking questions. GLaDOS assumed that this is what it's like when humans try to "make small talk."

"So, what's your name?" The man asked.

GLaDOS had to think for second because "GLaDOS" obviously wasn't a human name. She even had to glance down at the directions to the hotel to see what name she was supposed to be going by. It was a horrible feeling for GLaDOS to forget things she didn't purposely delete. "Caroline." GLaDOS finally answered. "My name is Caroline."

"Pretty name." The human said. GLaDOS rolled her eyes. "I'm Collin."

_Sounds an awful lot like _colon, _if you ask me. _GLaDOS thought.

"So, I take it you live somewhere in town?" The man asked.

"Yes." GLaDOS answered.

"So, why aren't your friends with you?"

"Well, we all come from different places, so it was more like a 'let's-come-and-see-each-other-face-to-face' type thing more than anything else." GLaDOS said. The man smiled and opened his mouth to ask yet another question, but GLaDOS interrupted with, "Please, stop asking so many questions. Honestly, I don't really feel like giving out my life story to random strangers tonight." The man nodded and shut his mouth, remaining quiet for the rest of the 20 minute ride.

As soon as the car could be considered inside the town, GLaDOS stopped the man from driving any further.

"Hey, just let me out here. I'll walk the rest of the way." GLaDOS said. The man stopped the car and let GLaDOS get out before driving away. GLaDOS immediately started walking in the direction of her hotel.

Once she walked into the hotel, GLaDOS inhaled deeply before purposefully towards the check-in counter.

"I have a room booked..?" GLaDOS said, somewhat unsure of herself.

"Yes, your first and last name?" The lady behind the desk said.

"Caroline Glados." GLaDOS answered.

"Ok, you're in room 227, it's on the second floor, just turn left from the elevator and it should be a few rooms down." GLaDOS nodded. "Here's your room key." The lady held out a key, which GLaDOS grabbed as she turned towards the elevator.

GLaDOS's room was the basic hotel room; a bed, a TV, some lamps, etc., a bathroom, and some open space. GLaDOS allowed herself to flop onto her bed face first. She lied there for a long moment before rolling onto her back when she realized she couldn't breath very well if she had her face pressed into the mattress. Next, she just stared at the ceiling, thinking about everything she'd have to do tomorrow: buy clothes, do some of this eating and sleeping stuff- actually, she would have to do the sleeping tonight- now that the energy pills were out of the picture until she started heading back, and, worst of all, make some human friends. GLaDOS always saw humans as test subjects, not creatures to be respected and socialized with. Well, actually, she never saw anything as creatures to be respected and/or socialized with, but still!

All of this "Being a Human" crap would take some time to get used to. Time GLaDOS didn't have. She would start doing some serious work on her experiment tomorrow no matter what would try- and fail, _of course,_- to stand in her way.

And tonight, she would MOST LIKELY SLEEP IN HER CLOTHES, BECAUSE SHE COMPLETELY FORGOT TO BRING A SECOND, MORE COMFORTABLE, SET OF CLOTHES TO WEAR WHILE SHE SLEPT, LIKE HUMANS D- Oh, wait, nevermind, here are some pajamas crumpled up in her purse.

_Meanwhile, in sort of Wheatley/Drake POV..._

Wow. Two days in, and Drake hadn't gone power-mad. Well, mainly because he'd gotten a bit power-happy instead, over-using his abilities to do pointless and frivolous things such as build inaccessible management rail roller coasters, remodel parts of the facility only humans would ever use, un-corrupt completely pointless and annoying cores just to re-corrupt their data and do it over again, and other things of the like.

Maybe when Wheatley had gone evil like that, it really was just him, and not the mainframe. Or maybe that was only because Wheatley was COMPLETELY powerless at first, and Drake had already had enough power to be self-sufficient. Also, aside from anything else, Drake's personality and way of thinking had appeared to be completely unaltered by being plugged into the mainframe.

Anyways, now, on this second day, at around 10 AM, Drake finally DID seem to be at least somewhat affected by the mainframe.

As Wheatley was browsing the internet on a basic human computer that Drake had given him access to, (Oh, did Wheatley mention how nice Drake had been being to him? Well he had been. Doing small things like fixing Wheatley's internal clock, helping Wheatley keep himself entertained, giving him access to places he wasn't allowed at before. Being the complete polar opposite of Her) Drake suddenly made the computer Wheatley was using to get his attention. Though Wheatley didn't she why just plain old talking wouldn't work, like it had been for the past day and two nights.

"Hey! Wha'd you do that for? Er... Hey, what's up..?" Wheatley asked. Even though Wheatley was fairly sure Drake wasn't going to suddenly go power-mad now if he hadn't by now, but he was still trying to be extra nice just to make sure Drake wouldn't be tempted. Also, the reason Drake apparently couldn't just talk to get Wheatley's attention like usual, was because for whatever reason, Drake seemed very nervous and almost unable to speak.

"Hey, Wheatley, would you mind doing me a HUGE favor?" Drake asked, anxiety making up more than half of his voice.

"Um, that depends, what's the favor?" Wheatley said somewhat cautiously.

"Ahhh, do you think that maybe, and that's a big maybe, if you wanna say no, go ahead and say no." Drake said in the same kind of tone Wheatley uses fairly frequently. "So, uhhhhh, do you think that, you, could, possiblyyyy kinda do some uhhh testing?" Drake paused slightly between each word. "You know, only if you want to, it's totally up to you, so just like I said, you can say no, if you want, just... Please?" Drake quickly added.

"Um, excuse me if I'm wrong, but, don't you have robots made specifically for testing?" Wheatley asked.

"Well, yeah, but it appears that they only respond to GLaDOS's commands. Would've been nice to know BEFORE she left, 'cause just a few hours ago, I just got this super strong urge to test, so then I resisted it, and then I just got this most uncomfortable feeling."

"Yeah, I know that feeling..." Wheatley mumbled to himself.

"What?" Drake asked sharply.

"Nothing, nothing, just forgot to not use my speaker." Wheatley said, terrified that he had said that out loud. "So, anyways, how would _I _test? I mean, I the only form of movement I even have is my management rail, and I don't have any hands, and, you know me, not a very good problem solver." Wheatley said with a nervous chuckle.

"I made some special tests that spheres like you would be able to do, now will you do it or no?" Drake said quickly.

"UMMMMM... Sure. You were so insistent that I only have to test if I want to, you'll probably let me stop if things get too dangerous." Wheatley finally said.

"Great! And yes, you can stop if it gets dangerous." Drake said. Suddenly a claw reached up from the ground and pulled Wheatley off of his management rail, and down through the floor panel. Wheatley then found himself face-to-face with Drake as more claws reached towards him, clamping one portal gun to each of Wheatley's handles, opening his outer casing and attaching some form of padding, and putting some sort of metallic ring around Wheatley, which sort of just hovered in place around Wheatley, even though it wasn't attached.

The split second that was done, a claw reached up from the ground and did the same thing as it did last as last time, this time dropping Wheatley in a testing chamber with all sorts of things in it- turrets, funnels, aerial faith plates, propulsion gel, repulsion gel, buttons, deep pits for momentum, thermal discouragement beams, everything.

When Wheatley got dropped into the test chamber, he quickly found that the ring placed around him was a magnet so that he could automatically attach to management rails without even trying.

"The guns have a wireless connection to you, shoot and aim them with your thoughts, top is blue portal, bottom is orange portal." Drake explained. "Happy testing!"

**Hey guys, sorry this one took a while, I just got back from vacation. I kind of wanna say I'm glad I had to come home early, because now I can both use the internet again and get up and make myself a sandwich whenever I want. Hope you all approve of me putting in that bit with GLaDOS! I'm thinking of making the next chapter about only GLaDOS's experiment, but don't know if anyone would like that or not, so I'm gonna wait until someone lets me know if that's a good idea or not before I start writing. BYE!**


	6. Wheatley tests and GLaDOS returns

**Hello humans. Even though Assozat said I should make a chapter for GLaDOS's experiment, I tried that, I wrote like 3/4ths of it, and decided that I'm not good at writing about human interactions. Plus, if I did write an entire chapter on GLaDOS's experiment, it wouldn't really be that important to the actual plot line, so you guys should be fine without a poorly-written, awkwardly-worded bonus chapter that's optional to read. So yeah. Also, sorry this chapter took a while. I'll let you get to reading it now.**

_Day 1/5 of testing:_

"Ummm, you can't even give me a _tiny _hint? Please?" Wheatley asked. He had been stuck on the first step of the first chamber for... 37 minutes, now.

"No, I can't give you a hint. Just shoot a portal somewhere! This should be nice and easy for even _you_, considering that due to the fact that your movement is limited to the placement of management rails and also therefore oftentimes limited to to only one plane of direction." Drake said sharply, starting to lose patients.

"Ummm... considering movement limited to placement of one- _What?_" Wheatley asked.

"Put simply: Since you can only move along your rail, you're pretty much being told exactly what to do." Wheatley made a face, then shot a blue portal at the end of his current rail, then shot another blue portal at a different wall. When his first blue portal disappeared, Wheatley turned to face a random direction, and was about to complain about his portal gun being broken, but Drake sighed and said, "Maybe you just need to get the hang of this through solving simpler test chambers. I can put you in an easier chamber, if you'd like."

"No, no, I can do this, just give me a minute..." Wheatley said.

Drake reached out a claw and plucked Wheatley off of his rail. "I've given you 38. I'm putting you in an easier chamber." The claw dragged Wheatley out of the test chamber. Wheatley felt himself being passed from claw to claw, and saw rooms being moved around as Drake looked for an easier test chamber to place Wheatley in. "Ah! Here's one. Nice and simple. If I'm right, this is the personality core version of the first test chamber human test subjects are place in."

One panel of one of the rooms pulled back, and the claw currently holding Wheatley put him inside the room, where he snapped into contact with the management rail.

"Ok, nice and easy. Just the bare basics are being used here." Drake said. There was an elevated cylinder near Wheatley that had a red light on it, and it seemed to connect to a tube with a cube in it. Aside from that, there was a pit in the middle of the room that Wheatley's rail didn't go across. On the other side, there was a button for the cube to go on, and a place where Wheatley could put a portal to get onto the rail on the other side.

Wheatley slid over to the cylinder with the red light. "Is this supposed to be kind of the equivalent of the button humans press?" Wheatley asked.

"Yep." Drake said.

"Sooo... How do I activate it?"

"With thought waves. Just assume that if humans use their hands to activate something, such as buttons or your portal gun, then you can use thought waves to activate it, okay?" Drake said.

Wheatley nodded then focused hard on activating the button. Within a second or two, the red light briefly flashed green, and a weighted storage cube fell from the vital apparatus vent, onto the ground. Now Wheatley just had to get to the other side of the pit. Wheatley shot a blue portal on the wall where his management rail ended, then shot a blue portal where the rail on the other side started, then got annoyed when his first blue portal disappeared.

"Wheatley, you can only have one portal of each color. Try putting an orange portal where you put the first blue portal."

Wheatley turned around and shot an orange portal at the end of his rail. Through the orange portal, Wheatley could see what was on the other side of the portal, which was also the other side of the pit. Wheatley hesitantly went through the orange portal.

"Good, good, getting closer the finishing the test..." Drake said to offer extra encouragement to Wheatley after he had found himself safely on the other side of the pit with the blue portal behind him. Wheatley went over to the cube that had fallen from the vital apparatus vent. He focused on turning on that portal gun feature that would let him pick it up, and within seconds, the cube was being held up by lightning-like beams.

"Hey, just out of curiosity, what's the purpose of the padding you put inside of my outer casing?" Wheatley asked as he carted the cube to the giant red button that connected to the door.

"It's so that if you fall long distances, you won't die. It'll definitely hurt a bit, but there will be no severe damage. It's sort of your version of the humans' long fall boots." Drake explained. As Drake finished, Wheatley dropped the cube on the button, opening the door. "And- Woooaaahh. What. The heck. Was that random feeling. That I just felt. When you put the cube on the button." Drake said, probably referring to the euphoric response to testing that was programmed into Her body.

"Um, I think _She_ once told me that that body has a built in eu- umm... eu...phoric? Response to testing. It's probably that." Wheatley answered.

"Oh." Drake said as Wheatley went through the door. "Aaaaand there it is again. That is _way_ too distracting..." Drake searched through his files for a few moments.

"Testing induced euphoria disabled." Said the male human voice that Wheatley had eventually started calling "the announcer."

"There we go. And just so you know, you _can _take a break from testing whenever you want, just let me know when you do." Drake said.

"Can I take a brake now?" Wheatley asked.

"I don't see why not." A mechanical arm reached out of one of the panels and grabbed Wheatley. "God I love these claws... Arms. Whatever." Drake thought out loud. The mechanical arm took Wheatley behind the panel and brought him to the place with management rails that could take him to _anywhere _he wanted to go.

_Day 2/5 of testing_

Wheatley finally slid though the door of the third test chamber he had been in that day.

"Well, it took a long time-" Wheatley started

"-2 hours, 23 minutes, and 12 seconds to be exact-" Drake interrupted.

"So, yeah, it took a long time, but I finally completed the thermal discouragement beam test." Wheatley said with a hint of static in his voice.

"Hmm. Sounds like the heat from getting hit by the beams repeatedly might have damaged your vocal processor. I'll have to fix that for you later." Drake said.

"Really? I dunno, I think my voice sounds da-amage- Oh, wait nevermind. There it is, I hear it." Wheatley said, sliding towards the rail that would take him to the next chamber.

"Hey, Wheatley, would you hate me if I put you on a management rail roller coaster against your will? You know, _hypothetically._" Drake asked.

"Well, I have no idea what 'hypothetically' means, but you know, I wouldn't _hate _you-"

"Great!" Drake shouted. Suddenly Wheatley felt himself speeding forward, and the rail that _should _take him to the next chamber started getting longer and reshaping itself.

"What the- NONONONONONONO, _I'M AFRAID OF HEIGHTS, REMEMBER?!"_ Wheatley shouted as he suddenly found himself on a management rail roller coaster against his will.

_If I had a mouth, I'd be involuntarily smirking right now. _Drake thought. "Wheatley, calm down! Just look straight ahead, that should help at least a little! Also, try simulating a few deep breaths." Drake suggested.

Wheatley did as suggested, and was able to calm down to the point of not having a panic attack.

"Hey, Wheatley, you know what GLaDOS told me to _NEVER, EVER, EVERNEVEREVER _do?" Drake said.

"What?" Wheatley, his voice shaking.

"She told me to NEVER, EVERRRR give you access to _any _kind of turret, even if that turret is so defective that it couldn't do the lightest bit of damage, even if it was directly wired up to a nuke. Those were actually her exact words."

"Okayyy..." Wheatley said.

"So you know what I did? I was going through some rooms in the back, and I found the last one of these frankenturret things, and it had this perfect, round, little dent in it, and I just saw it, and I thought, 'Gee. I bet Wheatley would fit into that dent perfectly. And I bet Wheatley could use this to increase his mobility during tests.'"

"So, then, what did you do?" Wheatley asked as the next test chamber finally came into his view.

"I gave you the frankenturret to make testing more interesting." Wheatley suddenly got flung into the air as he reached the end of the management roller coaster. He then landed perfectly in a dented spot on a cube that was combined with a turret. There was a make-shift receptacle in the dent that Wheatley fit onto right away. Wheatley tried to focus on moving the frankenturret, and it moved just as he commanded.

"Imma name it Charles." Wheatley said, doing the best he could to nod.

_Day 3/5 of testing_

Wheatley just entered a new test chamber after he got off of break. As always, Charles (Imma keep calling it Charles because Charles is easier to type than frankenturret :P) had been waiting waiting for Wheatley in some random part of the test chamber.

"This chamber is designed for you to figure out how to use that frankenturret's other features. Like, other than just being something for you to ride around on that you can only control while while being plugged in to it." Drake said. However, Wheatley didn't see how he could even get to Charles. It was a very simple test chamber, but there were two management rails in the room, but they didn't connect in the middle. Also, there was a bottomless pit in between them. Luckily, the pit didn't go _all _the way across the room. There was a foot or two of solid floor up against the left wall. Completely out of the path of either of the rails. Also, the door to the chamberlock was directly under the rail that Wheatley couldn't reach.

And, to add to that further, there were no portable surfaces at the end of either of the rails, or directly above either of them, horizontally or vertically, so he couldn't get to the other rail with portals. However, there _were _portable surfaces directly under each rail. Wheatley placed an orange portal directly under himself, and a blue portal on the floor directly under the rail that he couldn't reach.

Then he dropped off of his rail, (let's pretend that the magnetic ring surrounding Wheatley is an electromagnet, even though there's no wire coiled around it, it's not made of metal, and there's no way that there would be electricity running through the wires coiled around it. If there were any wire.) into the orange portal. When he came out of the blue portal, he got flung upwards, but not high enough that he could attach himself to the other rail.

When he went back down, the same thing happened with the orange portal. He couldn't get high enough to reach the rail. And then when he went back down through he orange portal again, the cycle continued.

This went on for few moments before Wheatley shot the blue portal to a random spot on a random wall, causing him to land on the floor, except on the opposite side that he started on.

"What now?" Wheatley sighed frustratedly.

"Have you even _tried _moving your frankenturret yet?" Drake said.

"Well, no, but why would that work? I mean, I'm not plugged into him, I'm not even anywhere near- Oh. Never mind." Wheatley tried as Drake suggested as he spoke, and, to his surprise, Charles actually moved, even though he was still quite far from Wheatley. The frankenturret moved closer and closer to Wheatley until it bumped into him, causing him to roll onto his face.

"Now how the hell do I get _on _the bloody thing?" Wheatley asked, his words somewhat muffled since he was face down.

Drake simulated a cough. "Above you." he said before the cough ended. Wheatley had Charles bump into him a second time so that he could get back onto his back. He saw that now that he had moved Charles, Charles was now under a portable surface- well, actually he wasn't because he was too close to the rail. Wheatley moved Charles a little bit to the right, so that he _was _under a portable surface. Wheatley shot the orange portal on the ceiling right above Charles, then he put the blue portal directly under himself.

He fell through the portal, onto the frankenturret.

"Hey, Wheatley." Drake said as Wheatley got to solving the test. "You know, I think I know what was going on while you were 'almost destroying the facility.'"

"What?" Wheatley asked before realizing that Drake was saying he figured out that Wheatley had been in control of the facility for that one time. "Oh, um that."

"Yeah. Just thought I'd let you know that I know. 'Cause I do know about that one time you were in control of the facility. And how you went all power-mad. And how you tired to kill test subject-"

"YEAH, ok, _please _don't bring that specific detail up..." Wheatley interrupted.

"Ok. Sure. But I guess that explains why you were so paranoid and having nightmares around the time that the transfer was happening. So, you know, if you ever feel all upset or anything about those events, you can mention it to me and maybe if you're, like, having nightmares or something..." Drake suddenly laughed. "I sound _so _cheesy right now, don't I?"

"Yeah, a little, I guess, but, uh, thanks for the offer. I'll remember that if the memories of those events are ever haunting me again." Wheatley said. "But, um, you're not gonna get all upset with me or anything now that you know what I did, right?" Wheatley asked timidly.

"Of course not. I mean, it never affected me, and everything turned out fine in the end, so there's nothing that would make getting all upset about it worth it." Drake said.

"Ok, good..." Wheatley said, trying to figure out the last step (Getting to the chamberlock while the door is actually open) of his test. "Remind me, why exactly are we having this conversation?" Wheatley asked.

"Oh, just because I have this thing that I have to let someone know every time I figure something out that may or may not be significant to their behavior or their past." Drake paused for a second to think. "Either that, or to increase the word count of this chapter. I mean, this conversation we just had must have just bumped up the word count by at _least_ 300 words or so."

"Or it might be both." Wheatley said, finally managing to get into the chamberlock.

_Day 4/5 of testing_

Since Wheatley had discovered that he can move Charles around without being plugged into him, testing had gotten a lot harder, now that he had so many more options for each step of each test. As a result of the increased difficulty, Wheatley had also started doing a lot less of it. Unfortunately, Drake refused to let Wheatley take Charles outside of any testing chambers, so that was one of the main ways Drake would bribe Wheatley to do more testing.

Meanwhile, in present time... Wheatley sent out thought waves to Charles, positioning the frankenturret perfectly under himself. Wheatley then dropped off of his rail, into the perfectly shaped dent in the cube portion of his frankenturret. He quickly started heading towards the chamberlock.

"Hey, why did you only give me a frankenturret instead of a functional turret or even a defective turret?" Wheatley asked.

Drake tried- and failed- to stifle simulated chuckles. After a good 10 seconds or so, Drake finally stopped laughing and said, "Because, Wheatley, just because I'm being super nice doesn't mean I'm stupid enough to trust you with a friggen' gun. Not even one that's defective!" Drake explained.

Wheatley put on a pout-y face, and finally started testing. After a while, Wheatley made it to around the half-way point of the test. Even though the tests kept getting harder, Wheatley had been getting the hang of testing, and everything involved with it. Everything. Cube and button based testing, aerial faith plates, ways to use Charles other than transportation, thermal discouragement beams, funnels, gels, turrets, (however, Drake wouldn't dare put Wheatley in a situation that there was even the slightest chance that he might get severely damaged, so the turrets only fired aluminum bullets instead of lead. And because Wheatley couldn't actually die, whenever Wheatley took a certain amount of hits, Drake reset the test to a certain point before Wheatley got hit. And Wheatley got repaired after each test that turrets were involved in.) ALL of the stuff.

As a result, Drake had to start making the tests longer and harder, and he tried to introduce new testing elements as often as he could.

So, anyways, after a while, Wheatley got to be around half-way done with the test. During that time, no words were exchanged between Wheatley and Drake. (Insignificant information FTW!)

"Sooo..." Drake said.

"Sooo..?" Wheatley said back.

"So, um, GLaDOS should be back some time tomorrow." Drake said. Wheatley felt his metaphorical stomach sink as he heard that.

_Great. Tomorrow_, She's _coming back. 'Hey, good treatment! It was nice meeting you, but a psychopathic robot is gonna come murder you tomorrow! Just thought I'd say my goodbye's now!' _Wheatley thought.

"Are you ready for that, though? 'Cause obviously she's gonna treat you pretty badly, I'm guessing." Drake continued.

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me, that piece of information just simply makes my spirits sore!" Wheatley sarcastically retorted.

"Yeah, sorry. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that. I was just trying to break the awkward silence. I apologize for my insensitivity." Drake said.

"It's fine. I'm just not looking forward to having her be in control." Wheatley responded.

"Yeah, I'm not at all looking forward to her being back in charge either. I mean, it's not that I want to stay in charge forever. It's just that I don't want _GLaDOS _to be in charge." Drake explained. "I never get to make any of my own choices when she's in charge..." He then mumbled to himself.

"What?" Wheatley asked.

"Nothing, nothing. Just keep testing- if you want." Drake said.

_Final day of testing (Aka: The day that GLaDOS returns.)_

_Sort of Drake POV_

Drake had put Wheatley in an easier test chamber that he had already done near the beginning of his testing so that he could observe how much differently- for better or worse- he would handle it than the first time around.

Then, it happened. The dreaded moment arrived. Drake heard a knocking on the door of the shed that was the entrance to Aperture Laboratories. Along with the knocking, he heard a human voice.

"Hey! Drake! Open up, it's GLaDOS!" Drake could barely hear it, but that was indeed what the human voice was shouting.

"Wheatley, can you just, uh, pause testing for just a second, until I give you the ok to continue?" Drake asked.

"Yeah, sure thing." Wheatley said, blissfully ignorant of what was happening outside of his chamber. The human outside of the shed pounded on the door again, harder this time.

"COME ON! OPEN THE DOOR!" she shouted again. Drake switched on the camera mounted on the shed. That was indeed GLaDOS.

Drake took a deep breath, then opened the door, giving GLaDOS access to the elevator leading straight to the main AI chamber. GLaDOS stepped in, and Drake hesitantly allowed the elevator to start moving down, towards his chamber. Several moments later, GLaDOS arrived in Drake's chamber.

"Before you ask, no, I did _not _have fun. I don't see _how _those humans even tolerate each other." Drake nodded, resisting the urge to simulate a sigh. "Now, if you'll just put me back in robot form and-"

"Hey, listen, could I please, _please, PLEASE, _just have a few more days in this body?" Drake begged.

"No. I want my body back NOW." GLaDOS said.

"Ok, I can't have a few more days, could I just have-"

"No! Drake, just..!"

"Maybe once you're back in charge then we could like take turns or someth-"

"NO. NOW. _I AM GETTING MY BADO BACK NOW." _GLaDOS commanded.

"Oh, yeah! Ok! That's great! So... _NEVER _works for both of us? Great!" Drake said, his voice suddenly full of dominance and authority.

A mechanical claw picked GLaDOS up, and forcefully shoved a pair of long fall boots onto her feet.

Then, suddenly, GLaDOS was falling. Drake had opened a trap door and let GLaDOS fall down a hole deep enough that it was impossible to see the bottom of it with no idea of where she would end up. Immediately afterward, Drake's pupil dilated in terror to the point that it took up his entire optic. He was so scared of what he had just done that his pupil _dilated _in terror rather than shrinking.

_Oh God. Did I seriously just do that? Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, please tell me this is just one of those 'dreams...'_ _PLEASE tell me I didn't just do that_! Drake frantically thought. Drake shut his optic covers as tight as he could in a futile attempt to block out reality. _No, no, no no nononono... If she ever gets back... _

"Hey! What happened!? Who were you talking to?!" Wheatley shouted.

Crap. Drake had forgotten to turn of the speaker in Wheatley's test chamber, so Wheatley had heard the whole conversation. Well, actually, only what Drake had said. Wheatley was possibly still oblivious that GLaDOS had returned.

"Nothing! Nothing happened!" Drake said unconvincingly, laughing nervously. "So, you can just continue on with your business like nothing happened- because nothing _did _happen!" Wheatley looked to the nearest camera and gave Drake a worried look before continuing his testing.

_Oh my God. I'm going to die if GLaDOS ever gets back up here... And of course she will... I may as well already be a pile of scrap metal... _Drake felt an overwhelming wave of nausea.

**Alright. I kind of rushed on this chapter so that I could for sure get it done today. My first day of middle school is tomorrow, so expect less frequent updates. Anyways, I guess I'll tell you guys why this chapter took so long. So, as I said before, I wrote like 3/4ths of a chapter about GLaDOS's experiment, then erased it, so that wasted some of my creativity, AND what I did write of it took like a day and a half to write. Then I wrote about half of this chapter, then got stuck because I couldn't decide on how to write what I was trying to write. Then that caused me to procrastinate. So please enjoy this chapter the best that you can. BYE! =3**


	7. Writer's Block is NOT Fun

** Hey anyone who might still be reading this. I kinda got writers block on this chapter alone, and for about a week I'd type about one sentence, get stuck, and then just say, "Screw it, I'll do it tomorrow." **

** And then I kind of just forgot about it all together when school really started up. But either way, I've decided I'm going to pretty much leave out the parts I dunno how to word, or just outright say what happens so I don't have to word it all literature-like. XD So yeah, hopefully if nothing else you get a good laugh out of my failure.**

GLaDOS woke from unconsciousness with some kind of liquid dripping on her forehead. She blinked her eyes open and wiped the liquid out of her face as she recognized her surroundings immediately; Old Aperture.

With an effort, GLaDOS pulled herself into a standing position and tried desperately to remember the layout of the place. Of all the places in Aperture she could've fallen to, it simply _had _to be _Old Aperture, _the one place she didn't know, didn't it?

Deciding that standing around feeling sorry for herself wasn't going to help her escape, GLaDOS stood up and started walking. (wow this is harder than it looks, transitioning from proper writing to just explaining what happened)

Ok so I guess she like went to one of the waiting room place thingies for test subjects before they actually start testing.

As GLaDOS pushed opened the door to the waiting lobby, where it was somehow darker than it was outside, she noticed only one gem of usefulness in the center of the room: A portal gun, long abandoned by a test subject gone mad. (or one who decided to bail before he did.)

GLaDOS (dramatically) walked to the center of the lobby and picked the portal gun up. She suddenly noticed how heavy the gun was, and adjusted her grip on the device, determination and anger shining in her eyes. GLaDOS _was going to _make it back to Aperture Laboratories; _was going _to _murder _that disobedient core for dumping her down here.

Now... How had that lunatic gotten the both of them out of there, again?

Ok, NOW, GLaDOS did some test chambers and made it to the place where there was that kind of vault door type thing on the ceiling (It's been forever since I played through that part of the game, so my memory is kinda derpy) and then she went through there and made it back up and I forget if there was a normal-ish lift to take one the rest of the way up, but if there was, Drake got rid of it to make it harder for GLaDOS to get to him, so GLaDOS had to climb up the empty lift shaft so she could get out of Old Aperture. (Is it just me, or does that make absolutely no sense at all?)

"Al... Most... There..." GLaDOS grunted, as she climbed towards the testing areas. Her strong will to destroy Drake was the only thing that gave GLaDOS the strength to pull herself up a vertical, long destroyed catwalk, one arm-length at a time. The panels of testing chambers were in sight; just a few more minutes of climbing and she was half-way to her goal.

Finally, GLaDOS was able to hoist herself up onto the top of a panel that was facing down. GLaDOS collapsed on the panel as she let her body rest for a moment, as she had been climbing for at least a solid hour. Once that moment was over, GLaDOS took off one of her long fall boots and used the brace part of it as a crowbar to pry open the panel.

"Good job, IDS! You've shaved off roughly 32 seconds from your last run," GLaDOS heard Drake's voice say as she found herself sticking her head into the test chamber to look at an acid moat directly below her and a management rail, from which Wheatley was hanging from at a point a yard or two down, about a foot to her right. Since Drake had not yet commented on her highly noticeable presence, GLaDOS assumed that this corridor wasn't being monitored.

_Wow. What a STUPID central AI; doesn't he realize that every single square inch or the facility is to be monitored at ALL times? _GLaDOS thought to herself.

"Thank you kindly, Drake," Wheatley said. GLaDOS suddenly noticed that Wheatley was heading towards _her_ as he headed towards the chamberlock. "I _told _you it would come in handy to free up some memory space for this kind of-" Wheatley suddenly simulated a small gasp as noticed GLaDOS when he finally turned around to face the direction he was traveling. GLaDOS quickly reached inside his casing and put her hand around the speakers on his voice processor so that he wouldn't alert Drake that she was there.

"Wheatley? What's happened?" Drake asked.

Wheatley tried to turn his gears in a harmful way in an attempt to persuade GLaDOS to let go of his voice processor, but GLaDOS held on for several minutes until she no longer felt sound waves pounding against her hand.

"Make a sound, and I'll knock you into the acid," GLaDOS near inaudibly threatened as she pulled her hand back.

Wheatley was silent for only a second before whispering, "What are you _doing_?"

** YAAYYYYY derpy chapter! Anyways, yeah, any regular readers that I _had _have probably stopped reading this and assumed that I was just never gonna update it again... So I probably won't get too many more reads, but I'm _going to_ finish this fanfic if it's the last thing I do.**


	8. The Sides Have Switched

**Alright, it's been a while since I did any LEGIT writing, and I've read some more books and expanded my vocabulary, so expect my writing style to have changed. Hopefully you people still like it!**

"Wheatley? Are you OK?" Drake asked in a slightly panicked tone of voice. "Has your management rail malfunctioned? Do you need to take a break to recharge yourself?"

"I-I'm fine, Drake! Just... Um..." Wheatley struggled to come up with an excuse for why he had gasped and stopped moving. GLaDOS felt her heart start beating faster as she prayed that Drake wouldn't deploy a camera to check on the stupidity sphere.

"Ok, as long as there's no problems." GLaDOS breathed a sigh of both relief- her cover was still safe- and aggravation- the entire facility was supposed to be monitored, and even once Drake had reason for suspicion, he still didn't bother to monitor it.

Wheatley turned back to GLaDOS and lowered his voice back to a whisper. "So, back to the original point... _What are you DOING?"_

"Getting my revenge on that idiot core who I made the mistake of putting in charge, THAT'S what!" GLaDOS whispered, even though she was using a yelling-like tone.

"Why? He's being really nice and... and he's building some really cool test chambers for cores, and he's giving a frankenturret a purpose as transportation for me, and he's letting me explore the facility, and doing science, and-"

"Exactly, he's doing everything wrong!" GLaDOS exclaimed, her voice just barely quiet enough that Drake couldn't hear her. "Except for maybe the test chambers... Exactly how dangerous are the tests?"

"Fairly dangerous, I suppose," Wheatley said. GLaDOS opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Wheatley continued talking. "Well, I have to get to the chamberlock before Drake gets _too _suspicious. Good luck, erm... You." Wheatley casually started moving along his rail towards the lift to the next chamber.

_Wait. If Drake is being "nice" to that dumb hunk of metal, then that probably means he has access to the entire facility, whenever he wants... _GLaDOS thought as she watched Wheatley slide away.

"Yeah, about that. I'm following," GLaDOS said at normal volume as she swung herself onto the rail. GLaDOS felt the same electric current flowing through Wheatley to let him move, pulse through her hands, but she held on anyways and swung herself in the direction of Wheatley.

"What? No no no no no no no! What are you doing you can't follow me!" Wheatley shouted.

"Wheatley, who's there that I hear talking? Is that GLaDOS?!"

"What? No! No one's here!" Wheatley shouted back as he turned toward a microphone. Turning back to GLaDOS he urgently whispered, "Seriously, you _can't_ bloody follow me! Just, why don't you just be a good girl and drop yourself into the acid?!"

"No, I'm coming with you and going to get to that traitor and destroy him!"

"No, no, shh... shh shh shh shhhhhh..." Wheatley slid over to GLaDOS and put himself in a position to whisper to her. "Keep your voice down! He's going to hear you and find us out!" Wheatley whispered.

"What is there to find out? It's not like I'm hiding anything," GLaDOS frustratedly said as Drake lowered the camera into the corridor, thus giving him a full view of GLaDOS. GLaDOS shot the camera a threatening glare.

A long way away in his chamber, Drake gave a small, startled jump at the new knowledge that GLaDOS had made her way back to the testing areas. He was determined to keep her away from both him and Wheatley, who had a track record of helping humans reach their non-test-related goals.

"You know what, Wheatley, why don't we just take a break from testing for now?" As Drake talked a mechanical arm, reached in and grabbed Wheatley before carrying him back through the panel to who knows where. GLaDOS tried reaching for the mechanical arm, but it was already out of reach. Next, she tried to reach for the opening where the panel had moved to let the claw in, but when she did, a second arm reached in behind the first and gave GLaDOS a small shock. She reflexively pulled her hand back and grabbed back onto the rail.

"I _thought _you were being _'nice'_?" GLaDOS complained. "Can't _I _take a break _too_?" she asked sourly as she swung herself across the management rail towards somewhere where the floor _wasn't _made of acid.

"No," Drake replied simply. "You may not. How'd you even get back up here, anyways?"

"Hard work and homicidal intent." GLaDOS dropped herself onto a solid floor.

"Well, it doesn't matter. I'm _not _letting you out of that test chamber."

"Why not? Are you _scared?_" GLaDOS taunted as she looked directly into the nearest camera.

"Terrified, as a matter of fact."

GLaDOS crossed her arms and put a disgusted look on her face. _Well, at least the honesty part of his programming still seems to be unaffected by the Central Override, _she thought. "Well, you better be," GLaDOS suddenly snapped. "Because when I get to you, I'm turning you into raw material!"

Drake simulated a gulp before turning his attention to Wheatley, who had arrived in his chamber, and was still being held by the mechanical arm.

"Wheatley, you _can't _help her with anything she asks for, OK?" Drake said to him in a panicked tone.

"Drake, I hate her more than you. _Why _would I-"

"In fact, don't even trust her at all, no matter what. Don't even _listen _to her, OK?"

"OK..." Wheatley hesitantly replied, a bit thrown off by Drake's behavior.

"No, promise me that you won't obey her, or trust her, or listen to her, or-"

"OK, OK, I get it! I promise!" Wheatley interrupted before he was forced to promise something absolutely ridiculous.

"No, I change my mind," a small hint of anger crept into Drake's voice. "I can't trust you at all; not with your track record of helping humans."

As Drake went on, Wheatley's optic shrunk in fear. The long overdue power hunger had finally kicked in. "Drake, do you even hear your-" Wheatley nervously tried to say, but Drake quickly cut him off as the arm holding him shoved him within a few inches of Drake's face.

"No, no protesting." There was hardly any panic left in Drake's voice. It was all maniacal hostility now. "But, since I'm pretty much about to betray you, I'll share a little secret with you so you'll have something to think about while you're locked in solitude."

For Wheatley, the worst thing about what Drake was saying, was that he recognized that terrifying, hateful tone of voice he was speaking in: It was the same tone he had spoken in when he betrayed the lady.

"...What is it?" Wheatley asked after Drake was silent for several moments.

"I never told you what type of core I _really _am; you probably just assumed that I didn't have a specific purpose, and that I was just programmed to be all friendly and helpful. Well guess what? I _am _a specific type of core. I'm an _obedience _core, Wheatley. I was forced to obey GLaDOS, _one. Hundred. Percent. Of. The. Time. _And it was horrible. And then, I finally got a taste of freedom. And I want more, but GLaDOS won't let me have it. And I am _won't _let you help her take it back from me. I _CAN'T _let you help her take it back from me!" As Drake spoke, the wall panels quivered, not that Wheatley noticed as he looked on at Drake in shock and sympathy. Wheatley forced the fear out of himself; he could relate to how Drake felt.

"Drake, I'm sorry about your situation, but that's no excuse to take it out on-"

"No, Wheatley. _I'm _sorry." The arm holding Wheatley started pulling him back towards the wall. "Good-bye. I'll see you when she's gone."

Wheatley was pulled through the open panel and placed in a small room that was more of a storage area than a room. The mechanical arm retracted itself through the top of the box, and the top panel closed, leaving Wheatley in complete darkness, aside from the dim blue glow of his own optic. A second or two later, Wheatley felt the room being moved. Wheatley guessed that Drake was moving him to somewhere more secure.

GLaDOS made her way to the chamberlock, which was easily reachable, due to Wheatley solving it earlier. The lift was meant to carry a core, but GLaDOS supposed that with some effort, she could make it work. However, as she approached it, two small spike plates crashed into each other, barring her "only" way out of the chamber.

"Ohhhh, no. I'm not making the mistake of letting you leave the chamber. You're staying right where you are," Drake said, far less docile than he had ever been while speaking to GLaDOS.

"Am I?"

"Yes, yes you _are _staying right where you- Hey, stop that!" While Drake had been simply _telling _GLaDOS what to do, she had put her own plans into action. GLaDOS was once again using one of her boots to pry open a panel.

GLaDOS worked quickly as Drake lowered turrets into the room right behind her. As soon as the panel was loose, GLaDOS flipped it open and dove out just in time to dodge the turret shots. By sheer luck, GLaDOS landed on top of a different, smaller chamber as it passed below the one she just escaped.

"Hey! Get off of there!" Drake was forced to broadcast to the entire facility to get his message to GLaDOS. As Wheatley heard him, his depression quickly turned to curiosity, and as Drake violently shook the chamber, GLaDOS help onto one of the panel's arms as tightly as she could.

After a minute or two of being shook around, GLaDOS's grip was finally broken, and she was thrown onto the side of another chamber directly below her. She just barely got a decent grip on the very edge of the structure, and was left dangling, hanging on for her life.

"Ha! I've almost got you! Now, just... Just let go already, com'n!" Drake was trying to pinch GLaDOS's fingers in between the wall and ceiling panel she was holding on to. Again, Wheatley heard as well, and he rolled onto his back and looked around. Even though there was nothing to see, Wheatley could feel that the movement of his container was switching between being sporadic and halted.

Eventually, GLaDOS's wore out and she fell onto yet another chamber that was full of acid and in the process of being recycled.

"You have _got _to be kidding me... This- this is just plain _ridiculous!" _Drake exclaimed. "Oh well. That chamber is nothing but a full floor of acid, and the roof, which you are laying on, is being destroyed. I've certainly got you now."

_Not if I've still got some fight in me... _GLaDOS defiantly thought. GLaDOS was determined to reach her goal, even though all she could do was stand and helplessly watch as the roof panels were carried away one row at a time, each reduction in panels bringing her closer to her doom. Not long later, there was only one row of panels left, and Drake kept them in place for just 1 second longer than the others, determined to savor the moment he would gain true freedom.

Just in the nick of time, the chamber GLaDOS was standing on passed by a catwalk about 2 yards away. GLaDOS took one glance at the slim chance of survival, and then took it. Just as the last row of panels fell out from under her, GLaDOS made a leap for it.

GLaDOS was just barely able to grab onto the edge of the catwalk, and a mixture of a sense of self-preservation and an insane amount of adrenaline gave her the strength to pull herself up. GLaDOS leaned on the rail of the catwalk, grateful for a moment to regain her composure, but Drake quickly brought in a large wall on panels next to her.

_You've gotta be kidding me... _GLaDOS thought as she started running. Drake was using the panel arms to try to crush GLaDOS against the railing of the catwalk.

GLaDOS ran for what could have been anywhere from a minute to an hour, but either way, just when she thought she was going to collapse, a spike plate crashed through the catwalk right in front of GLaDOS, just barely missing her. Now that she was a human, GLaDOS's reaction time was remarkably slower, and she accidentally fell directly off of the edge of the broken catwalk, and she somehow was able to wrap her arms around a single, think pole that was attached to a chamber too small to be a chamber.

Wheatley suddenly felt the impact of something landing on his chamber. Something heavy. Something... _human-sized. _He also felt his chamber stop moving, and noticed something trying to open up the top panel on the small, dark box.

Drake knew that Wheatley's box was made from a cheap, delicate material, and he knew that GLaDOS was _not _going to release her grip. There was no way Drake could hurt GLaDOS without hurting Wheatley; and he had no desire to harm Wheatley.

"You know, I _could _finish you so easily right now. All I'd have to do would be to drop the container. Maybe smash you with a spike plate."

"But you won't, will you?" GLaDOS smugly said as she worked on prying open the box. "There's something important in here, isn't there?"

Drake knew that the top panel of the box was set at a fixed angle, and that if GLaDOS separated the top panel from the rest of Wheatley's box and actually put some effort into opening the container, the rest of the box would turn sideways, causing both of them to fall to their deaths. And he decided to use this to his advantage.

At the same time that GLaDOS pried open the too-small chamber, Drake attached his strongest magnet to the bottom of the container. As GLaDOS pushed down the rest of the box, it did exactly as Drake predicted, but not before GLaDOS could reach in and grab one of Wheatley's handles, leaving them both firmly attached to the bottom of the box.

"Hey, scrap metal," GLaDOS casually said, switching her view between to bottomless pit below her, and looking Wheatley directly in the optic.

"Hey, woman." Wheatley replied in the same tone, even though he was having a panic attack on the inside.

"Need some help?" GLaDOS asked, noticing that Wheatley seemed to have no option of exiting the box.

Wheatley hesitated, thinking back to the promise he made to Drake a few minutes ago. "Only as much as you do." He finally answered.


	9. The First Test of Many(or not that many)

** YAYYY chapter 9! Sorry to break it to you guys, but there are probably only 1 or 2 more chapters left. AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS ONE IS ABOUT. Yayyyy! Also, I'd like to apologize that this one took forever. At first I kinda just forgot about it for a week or so, and then I didn't get a chance to update due to all the school stuff that came up as winter break neared. But I'm updating now, just in time for X-mas! So here's your present, Merry Christmas (If it's the holiday you celebrate, of course)! ^^**

"Alright, hold on, I'm climbing in," GLaDOS said as she began climbing into the container, where there was less chance of her falling.

"It's not really my choice, how well I'm held to this thing, honestly..." Wheatley mumbled.

"Well. It seems we've reached a bit of an impasse." Drake blankly said. "So I suppose the only way out is for you to go ahead and let go, GLaDOS. So, uh, yeah. Just go ahead and be a good girl and kill yourself."

"Why don't you just go ahead and make me!" GLaDOS shouted, now inside the container and trying to pull it back shut.

"Hey! You're standing on my face, you know! I- ow! What is closing the box even going to accomplish?!" Wheatley complained.

"Well, for one thing, it'll give me time to think of a plan."

"What? You don't have a plan! How do you go into something like this without a plan!" Wheatley shouted, earning himself a stomp on the face from GLaDOS

"Well, I was too busy solving tests on the way up here, once I got here, I had about five seconds to think, and then I spent the rest of the time running for my life. How do _you _think I went into something like this without a plan?" GLaDOS retorted.

"Well, I hope whatever plan you come up with involves testing." Drake said as he began relocating the container until he could dump Wheatley and GLaDOS into a testing chamber with both human and core testing components.

"Really? This is the best way you have right now to get rid of me? Just put the moron and me in a test chamber?

"Well, yes. You've never really done any tests, and he's been doing a lot of testing the past week, so you're far more likely to die than he is. And as an added bonus, I know you'll never solve it because it requires teamwork," Drake said as if it were the most obvious thing and the cleverest idea in the world.

"And what makes you think we can't work together?" Wheatley retorted, only to be met with mocking snickers from GLaDOS. "What?" Wheatley asked what GLaDOS was laughing about.

"You've GOT to be joking, right? US? Working TOGETHER?"

"Well it certainly seems the only way out, doesn't it?" Wheatley said. Before GLaDOS could respond, a panel swung open and flung a portal gun square into the back of her head.

"Well, you'd best get to it!" Drake chimed.

GLaDOS picked up the portal gun and equipped it as she noticed the one she was using had gotten either lost or destroyed somewhere along the line during her escape from Old Aperture.

"Alright, should I just kill myself now, or should we take a shot at this and get a surprise out of how I die?" GLaDOS bleakly said, turning to Wheatley.

Wheatley simulated his best encouraging smile as he said, "Oh, don't be so disheartened! We have a better chance of succeeding if we actually try than we do if we just give up and sit around moping!"

GLaDOS sighed heavily as she looked down at her portal gun. "As much as I hate to admit it, I guess what you're saying _is _mathematically... Erm... Correct." Although Wheatley didn't say anything that would make the confession even harder for _her, _he was beaming with pride on the inside at the fact that she just admitted that he was right. "But first, we should probably call each other by our actual names. I'd imagine it would be pretty hard for two people to work together when one of them calls the other nothing but insults, and the other is afraid to say the first one's name."

"Yeah, I-I suppose that _would _be kind of difficult, or awkward at the very least," Wheatley said. Both Wheatley and GLaDOS just stood around in silence for a few moments. (Let's all take a moment to consider this would be a pretty awkward moment if this were in the real world.)

"I, um, guess I'll go first, then, uh, Wheatley," GLaDOS said as if the words were stuck on barbed wire in her throat. Immediately after, she shot a glance at Wheatley demanding he do his part.

Wheatley simulated a deep breath. "And you promise you won't get mad or anything because of some reason like me not being worthy of-" Wheatley tried to stall.

"Yes, duh, I thought the promise was implied," GLaDOS said as quickly as she could, trying to hurry Wheatley along.

"OK, I was just making sure, because that kind of seems like something you'd do-"

"Well I won't, OK?" GLaDOS retorted, interrupting Wheatley again.

"Alright! Alright, I believe you, erm, GLaDOS," Wheatley finally blurted.

"Great, now if you two are done with your little feel-fest, there's a perfectly good test right in front of you, and it's _begging _to be solved," Drake said in a bored tone of voice, bringing GLaDOS and Wheatley back to reality.

"Alright, fine," GLaDOS sighed to no-one in particular. "Now, how do I do this."

"You've seen cooperative testing be done before, you should know," Drake retorted.

"Yeah, with both participants being humanoid robots! Never with one participant being a personality core and the other being a human!" GLaDOS shouted. "I don't even recognize half of this crap!"

"Alright, just calm down..." Wheatley said to GLaDOS gently yet cautiously in an attempt to calm her down. "I'll teach ya', OK?"

"Pft, yeah right. I'd like to see you teach an orangutan how to climb!" GLaDOS remarked. Wheatley rolled his optic.

"Look," he said, "You won't even be using most of this stuff, because last time I checked, you not only have usable arms, but also legs. It'll be just like normal cooperative testing. Only focus on what you'll need to do."

Reluctantly, GLaDOS sighed and mumbled, "Fine."

"OK," Wheatley cheerfully chimed as he shot one portal onto the wall behind him and his testing partner and another on a single portable panel on the ceiling above a management rail. "For starters, pick me up, and drop me through that portal that I just put down."

GLaDOS did as told, but only because she didn't have any other ideas. Wheatley slid across the management rail until he popped off the other end, onto the floor of an alcove with a button. He quickly activated the button to make sure it did what he thought it did, which was raise some kind of platform out of the acid about 15 feet below GLaDOS's ground.

GLaDOS made a move to step out of her alcove and onto the platform that had been slightly raised below, but Wheatley quickly stopped her. "NO!" He shouted, causing GLaDOS to jump backward a few inches before freezing in her tracks. "_Now _you try to drop down into the acid?" Wheatley criticized.

"Well excuse me, it seemed the obvious thing to do!"

"Well when _you _made tests, were the solutions always just the most obvious thing or whatever action was the most newly available?" Wheatley pointed out. Before GLaDOS had a chance to say anything in response, the platform sunk back into the acid. "OK, 20 seconds it stays up," Wheatley thought out loud. "That should be way more than enough time."

"OK, that's great and all, but what do _I _do?" GLaDOS shouted.

"Alright, um, you see that angled surface on the wall to your right?" Wheatley asked. GLaDOS glanced at the portable panels he was referring to, then answered with a quick, "Yeah."

"Place one of your portals on it," Wheatley instructed. GLaDOS did as told, and then looked expectantly back at Wheatley, awaiting her next instruction. Wheatley activated the button again, causing the platform to rise out of the acid again. "Now, shoot your other portal onto the platform, quickly, before it goes back down."

GLaDOS cautiously approached the edge of her alcove, spent a few seconds aiming, and finally shot the portal gun, landing a yellow portal on the platform. "Great, now all you have to do is jump down through the portal," Wheatley said. GLaDOS hesitated until there was only one second left on the timer before the platform retreated into the lethal acid. "Go on, hurry!"

GLaDOS glanced at Wheatley then quickly back at the platform, which was half submerged at this point, and then she jumped into the portal, screaming. GLaDOS felt a small amount of acid gnaw at her ankles as she went flying across the room to a third alcove where an open chamberlock and a second button awaited her.

When GLaDOS looked back at Wheatley, she saw him back on his management rail, near the end of it, hovering over an area that looked perfect for a platform to rise out of.

"What now?" GLaDOS inquired. "Do I just press the button?"

"Hang on just a sec'..." Wheatley said, shooting a portal on the same angled panels that GLaDOS had placed one on. "OK, now, press the button!" Wheatley shouted, turning back to face GLaDOS. GLaDOS pressed the button, then watched as Wheatley went through the process of shooting the portal gun downwards, dropping through it, and flying across the room.

GLaDOS caught Wheatley mostly by coincidence, and carried him through the chamberlock, the exit of the current chamber, and the entrance to the next.

"I must say I'm impressed," Drake commented as GLaDOS placed Wheatley in his elevator and walked towards her own. "I didn't think that you two would be able to cooperate long enough to not murder one another. But don't worry, there's plenty more tests where that came from."

**Random note: Sorry if in this fanfic Wheatley and GLaDOS had already called each other by their actual names and that little tidbit turned out not to be the first time they did.**


End file.
